Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
It's lovely to be old. I've got age, experience and zero personal ambition. No body could corrupt me by anything: possibly a job in the government, a peerage, a quango, I don't want any of it.
Tony Benn
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Tony Benn
Age: 88 †
Born: 1925
Born: April 3
Died: 2014
Died: March 14
Autobiographer
Diarist
Former Member Of The European Parliament
Politician
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn
Age
Experience
Peerage
Government
Corrupt
Anything
Zero
Body
Possibly
Lovely
Ambition
Personal
More quotes by Tony Benn
When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?
Tony Benn
The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.
Tony Benn
I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them.
Tony Benn
Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.
Tony Benn
If I rescued a child from drowning, the press would no doubt headline the story: 'Benn grabs child
Tony Benn
I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner
Tony Benn
I do not share the general view that market forces are the basis for political liberty. Every time I see a homeless person living in a cardboard box in London, I see that person as a victim of market forces. Everytime I see a pensioner who cannot manage, I know that he is a victim of market forces
Tony Benn
I opposed the Suez war, I opposed the Falklands war. I opposed the Libyan bombing and I opposed the Gulf war and I never believed that any of those principled arguments lost a single vote - indeed, I think they gained support though that was not why you did it. What has been lacking in Labour politics over a long period is a principled stand
Tony Benn
There is good and bad in all of us and the Church uses the idea of original sin to control us by saying that, if we do not obey the bishops, we will rot in Hell.
Tony Benn
Anyone from abroad will tell you that it is the class system that really lies at the root of our problems, economic and industrial. The House of Lords symbolises that.
Tony Benn
If you're going to make sense of politics you have to have a historical perspective and also recognise that you have to work with people you don't agree with.
Tony Benn
If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?
Tony Benn
I did not enter the Labour Party 47 years ago to have our manifesto written by Dr Mori, Dr Gallup and Mr Harris
Tony Benn
I believe the more difficult the circumstances, the more people will be inclined to trust those in charge at the moment.
Tony Benn
It is obvious I shall have to abandon my hopes of getting the Queen's head off the stamps.
Tony Benn
The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.
Tony Benn
Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don't have the freedom to choose.
Tony Benn
All war represents a failure of diplomacy.
Tony Benn
If you read Mein Kampf, Hitler's book, which I have outside, I bought it when I was eleven, Hitler said, democracy inevitably leads to Marxism - now you work that one out. It's so interesting that when the poor have the vote they will use it to remove the privileges of the rich.
Tony Benn
Cabinet members are soon overwhelmed by the insistent demands of running their departments. On the whole, a period in high office consumers intellectual capital it does not create it....The less ministers know at the outset, the more dependent they are on the only sources of available knowledge the permanent officials.
Tony Benn