Quotes-Yes Minister

[Discussing property owned by the Department of Administrative Affairs]
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Ladysmith House is top secret.
James Hacker: How can a seven storey building in Walthamstow be top secret?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Where there's a will, there's a way.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Politicians like to panic. They need activity; it's their substitute for achievement!
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it's worked so well?
James Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased, it's just like old times.
James Hacker: But if that's true, why is the foreign office pushing for higher membership?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: I'd have thought that was obvious. The more members an organization has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.
James Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: We call it diplomacy, Minister.

James Hacker: So when this next comes up at Question Time, you want me to tell Parliament that it's their fault that the Civil Service is too big?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: But it is the truth, Minister.
James Hacker: I don't want the truth. I want something I can tell Parliament!
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, I have something to say to you which you may not like to hear.
James Hacker: Why should today be any different?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, the traditional allocation of executive responsibilities has always been so determined as to liberate the ministerial incumbent from the administrative minutiae by devolving the managerial functions to those whose experience and qualifications have better formed them for the performance of such humble offices, thereby releasing their political overlords for the more onerous duties and profound deliberations which are the inevitable concomitant of their exalted position.
James Hacker: I wonder what made you think I didn't want to hear that?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: It is necessary to get behind someone in order to stab them in the back?
[there has arisen the possibility of James Hacker becoming Prime Minister]
Sir Humphrey Appleby: How would you feel about your present master as the next Prime Minister?
[Bernard looks at his watch]
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Are you in a hurry?
Bernard Woolley: No, I was just checking my watch to see it wasn't April 1st!

[the Home Secretary has been forced to resign after a drink-driving incident]
James Hacker: What will happen to him?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, I gather he was as drunk as a lord. So, after a discreet interval, they'll probably make him one.

[talking on the phone about the arrangements for an international conference]
Bernard Woolley: Have the countries in alphabetical order? Oh no, we can't do that, we'd put Iraq next to Iran.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Bernard, Ministers should never know more than they need to know. Then they can't tell anyone. Like secret agents, they could be captured and tortured.
Bernard Woolley: You mean by terrorists?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: By the BBC, Bernard.
James Hacker: But we can't betray government colleagues! Stab them in the back and spit in their eye!
Bernard Woolley: You can't actually stab anyone in the back while you spit in their eye, minister.
Bernard Woolley: [Bernard looks embarrassed] Sorry.

Bernard Woolley: That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential security briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.