"I don’t need to know most of what’s fed to us by newspapers and the TV. It’s largely useless information and daily moaning. There are only a few things in business that I really want to know about. Tell me about manufacturing productivity, employment, the balance of payments and borrowing levels. With these things you can decide on how to run a business, a constituency or even a country."

“On the euro: They are rebuilding the Soviet Union. Even though we in the UK are now developing the bureaucracy, the black economy and the corruption essential for participation in the new European superstate, I don't think it is something the British people will want or welcome.”

“Business 101: Other people heard it and said if you make them, we'll sell them... I made them, they sold them, but they never paid me - which was my first lesson in business.”

“People don’t automatically appreciate the difference between listening and hearing any more than they do the difference between looking and seeing.”

“On the taxman and other regulators: We are now suffering from four simultaneous investigations by separate tax and regulation authorities. We are constantly harassed and abused by these people. Usually they end up owing us money. I can't find anybody who runs a foreign-owned subsidiary who has anything like the aggro we have.”

“I foolishly assumed that if the thing measured better, it should sound better. I also assumed that if it didn't sound any better, there was no point in buying it.”

“On the EU: An act of collective insanity. We don't belong in Europe and the French and the Germans occasionally reveal their hatred of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism. They hate Britain and America.”