“I have always been — I think any student of history almost inevitably is — a cheerful pessimist.”

As quoted in "Age of unreason" by Jeannette Baxter in The Guardian (22 June 2004)

interview after her speech
2010s, Nobel Prize winner highlights women’s role in Arab Spring (2011)

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)
Context: How come life in prison doesn't mean life? Until it does, we're not ready to do away with the death penalty. Stop thinking in terms of "punishment" for a minute and think in terms of safeguarding innocent people from incorrigible murderers. Americans have a right to go about their lives without worrying about these people being back out on the street. So until we can make sure they're off the street permanently, we have to grit our teeth and put up with the death penalty. So we need to work toward making a life sentence meaningful again. If life meant life, I could, if you'll excuse the pun, live without the death penalty.
We don't have it here in Minnesota, thank God, and I won't advocate to get it. But I will advocate to make life in prison mean life. I don't think I would want the responsibility for enforcing the death penalties. There's always the inevitable question of whether someone you gave the order to execute might truly have been innocent.

Responding to the claim that she would have been able to call off her leadership challenge against Rudd, following their final meeting on the night of 23 June 2010.
The Killing Season, Episode two: Great Moral Challenge (2009–10)

This appears to have been originally written by John Briley in the screenplay http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Gandhi.txt for the movie, Gandhi (1982), spoken by Ben Kingsley, playing Gandhi. The earliest [partial] misattribution to Gandhi appears to be by Ronald Reagan in an address http://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/25/world/transcript-of-reagan-s-address-to-the-un-general-assembly.html?pagewanted=all to the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 1984 (also a misquotation, substituting the word fail for fall). John S. Dunne misattributes the first sentence in The Peace of the Present (1991) on p. 50 https://books.google.com/books?id=NYIJAAAAIAAJ&q=%22when+Gandhi+says%22+%22When+I+despair,+I+remember+that+all+through+history+the+way+of+truth+and+love+has+always+won.%22&dq=%22when+Gandhi+says%22+%22When+I+despair,+I+remember+that+all+through+history+the+way+of+truth+and+love+has+always+won.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhufXN09LWAhWG7SYKHbRdCJ0Q6AEIJzAA, just after misattributing the same first two sentences that Reagan did. Dunne also misattributes the final part of the quotation in the same book on p. 34 https://books.google.com/books?id=NYIJAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Think+of+it+%E2%80%94+always%E2%80%A6%22+%22When+you+are+in+doubt+that+that+is+God%27s+way,+the+way+the+world+is+meant+to+be%E2%80%A6+think+of+that.%22&dq=%22Think+of+it+%E2%80%94+always%E2%80%A6%22+%22When+you+are+in+doubt+that+that+is+God%27s+way,+the+way+the+world+is+meant+to+be%E2%80%A6+think+of+that.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEw57e1tLWAhUSdiYKHUNiA2kQ6AEIMTAC.
Misattributed
Context: When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it—always… When you are in doubt that that is God's way, the way the world is meant to be… think of that.

From an interview for Italian television (RAI) (10 March 1986) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106223
Second term as Prime Minister
Context: In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.

"Porcelain and Pink"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

BBC Sunday AM (15 January 2006)
2000s, 2006

Source: To John Adams, as quoted in Adams, C.F. (editor) (1850–56), The works of John Adams, second president of the United States, vol. VIII, pp. 255–257, quoted in Ayling, p. 323 and Hibbert, p. 165.