Here are some of Gordon Brown's more memorable quotations:
"Socialists must neither place their faith in an Armageddon of capitalist collapse nor in nationalisation alone" - in The Red Paper on Scotland, 1975.

"People do not live in isolation. People do not live in markets. People live in communities. I think of Britain as a community of citizens with common needs, mutual interests, shared objectives, related goals and most of all, linked destinies" - Essay 1992

"Labour will be committed to meeting the golden rule of borrowing - over the economic cycle, government will only borrow to finance public investment and not to fund public consumption" - Speech, August 1993.

"Old Labour tried to counter the injustices and failing of free market forces by substituting government for market" - Speech, 1994

"The growth of post-neo-classical endogenous growth theory and the symbiotic relationships between growth and investment" - a famously obscure sentence uttered in 1994.

"We will ensure that the undeserving rich, the real beneficiaries of the something-for-nothing society, put something back into society" - in a Labour Party press release, September 1994.

"Education is the foundation, the well-spring of a successful economy" - Essay, 1994.

"A strong and flourishing economy demands a strong and socially just society" - Essay, 1994.

"A Scottish Parliament and an Assembly for Wales go hand in hand with the offer of greater regional democracy throughout Britain" - Speech, Westminster, 1995.

"Equality of opportunity should not be a one-off, pass-fail, life-defining event but a continuing opportunity for everyone to have the chance to realise their potential to the full" - Speech, 1996.

"We reject equality of outcome not because it is too radical but because it is neither desirable nor feasible" - February 1997.

"New Labour will no longer tax for taxation's sake" - Essay, 1997.

"I believe in socialist values ... liberty, equality, democracy and internationalism" - interview in The Guardian newspaper, 1999.

"When I stood aside in 1994 I did what I thought was right for the Labour party and for the long-term interests of the country. And out of a sense of duty. That's why it is quite difficult when people say I am driven only by personal ambition ... People will have to make up their own minds ... But they can't run two stories at once" - 2004.

"My favourite sport at school was rugby. All sports are teamwork, but rugby particularly is about teamwork and I think teamwork is the essence of this" - 2004.

"When people complain that you control public expenditure it's because the country wants public expenditure controlled. If that means sometimes people are bruised by it then I'm sorry but it's what you've got to do in the interests of the country" - 2004.

"Courage is the belief that there is something more important than safety" - 2004.

"When people talk about party politics it is almost purely in the sense of ambitions - who's up, who's down, who's in, who's out. But it would be outrageous if that's what drove people on. The only point of being around is to get something done - not to talk about it in the House of Commons" - 2004.

"For some people, politics is the art of the possible. For me it is the art of making the desirable possible. If I didn't think I could achieve any more ... if, domestically, the agenda we started off on could not be completed, it would be time to do something else other than politics" - 2004.

"I am ready to make the decisions for people and to work with other people to make this country the great country it is at all times" - on whether he was ready to become Prime Minister.

"And I am ready, I think, to help this country move into its new generation where I think the challenges we face are ones that, because of the values that bind us as a country together, we are uniquely able to say that we are going to be one of the great global success stories of the future" - on his readiness to become Prime Minister.

"I was actually smiling, talking to one of my colleagues about my new baby... It was nothing to do with politics" - on being photographed grinning after talks with Tony Blair where they had reportedly had a row.

"I am happy for there to be a leadership contest. I think there should be" - 2007.

"There is nothing you could say to me now that I could ever believe" - remark allegedly made to Tony Blair but which has never been confirm.