Jose Mujica Quotes

Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet.

All my life I've been rowing against the tide. What can I do? It seems I was born that way.

If we lived within our means - by being prudent - the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species.

The world will always need revolution. That doesn't mean shooting and violence. A revolution is when you change your thinking. Confucianism and Christianity were both revolutionary.

It has always been like that with changes. In 1913, we established divorce as a right for women in Uruguay. You know what they were saying back then? That families would dissolve. That it was the end of good manners and society. There has always been a conservative and traditional opinion out there that's afraid of change. When I was young and would go dancing at balls, we'd have to wear suits and ties. Otherwise they wouldn't let us in. I don't think anyone dresses up for dancing parties nowadays.

I'm not the apocalypse nor the promised land.

I'll shout it if they want: Down with isms! Up with a Left that is capable of thinking outside the box! In other words, I am more than completely cured of simplifications, of dividing the world into good and evil, of thinking in black and white. I have repented!

I never killed anyone because it wasn't necessary. I could have killed.

Between madness and sanity, there is a shifting boundary. It is impossible to explain. Time slows down and you have to try to fill it. You don't have anything but solitude.

My definition of poor are those who need too much. Because those who need too much are never satisfied.

I am an austere president.

As soon as politicians start climbing up the ladder, they suddenly become kings. I don't know how it works, but what I do know is that republics came to the world to make sure that no one is more than anyone else. The pomp of office is like something left over from a feudal past: "You need a palace, red carpet, a lot of people behind you saying, 'Yes, sir.' I think all of that is awful."

The political climate during a campaign is not the best climate for reasonable debate.

I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor.

Any North American state is more important than Uruguay, in dimensions, in its economic force.

A president is a high-level official who is elected to carry out a function. He is not a king, not a god. He is not the witch doctor of a tribe who knows everything. He is a civil servant. I think the ideal way of living is to live like the vast majority of people whom we attempt to serve and represent.

My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history.

My years in jail were a bit like a workshop for my - that actually forged my way of thinking and my values.

I have the goal of getting together 30 or 40 poor kids and bringing them to live with me.

Some people love money and get into politics. If they love money so much, they should get into commerce, industry, or do whatever they want - it's no sin. But politics is for serving the people.

I give myself the luxury of saying what I want.

The fight against the drug smuggling is lost worldwide.

I know prisons from the inside.

I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live,

My goal is to achieve a little less injustice in Uruguay, to help the most vulnerable and to leave behind a political way of thinking, a way of looking at the future that will be passed on and used to move forward. There's nothing short-term, no victory around the corner. I will not achieve paradise or anything like that. What I want is to fight for the common good to progress. Life slips by. The way to prolong it is for others to continue your work.

We can't avoid that our daily and intimate manner of speaking is sometimes rough.

If you don't have many possessions, then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself.

If the inmates of Guantanamo want to make their nests in Uruguay, they can do it.

The secret of happiness is living in accordance with how one thinks. Be yourself and don't try to impose your criteria on the rest. I don't expect others to live like me. I want to respect people's freedom but I defend my freedom.

The way the banks behave is frankly unbearable. I didn't rob for me. I expropriated resources for a struggle. If I had robbed for myself that would be different.

No addiction is good.

No country can solve climate change alone, we have to take global measures.

There are those who believe that power is up above, and they don't notice that it's actually in the hearts of the great masses.

When you have a lot of solitude, any living thing becomes a companion.

I'm just sick of the way things are. We're in an age in which we can't live without accepting the logic of the market. Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy ... What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us.

Worse that drugs is drug trafficking. Much worse. Drugs are a disease, and I don't think that there are good drugs or that marijuana is good. Nor cigarettes. No addiction is good. I include alcohol. The only good addiction is love. Forget everything else.

There are people who say that you can't experiment ... That condemns you to failure.

I don't know whether I like this planet or not. But I have to accept it.