Queen Elizabeth II

"Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements."

"Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are gone but a declaration of our hopes for the future, and for the years I may, by God's Grace and Mercy, be given to reign and serve you as your Queen."

"What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today."

"I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else - I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations."

"The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women."

"I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but the living strength and majesty of the Commonwealth and Empire of societies old and new of lands and races different in history and origins but all, by God's Will, united in spirit and in aim."