Tony Benn quotes: Well known as Tony Benn, his real name is Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn. His tenure (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014). He was a British Writer and Politician. 2nd Viscount Stansgate between 1960 and 1963. He was a member of the Labor party and cabinate minister in the 1960s and 1970s. REFERENCE.
In his lifetime has delivered several speeches as a member of the Labor Party and a Member of Parliament. We have collected some of his well known quotations for ready reference for the purpose of motivation.
Tony Benn Quotes
If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.
His “Five questions” for the powerful.
Over the course of his life he has developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person–Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates–ask them five questions: Reference
- 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?”
I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so. Tony Benn quotes!
The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians. Tony Benn quotes!
Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself. Tony Benn quotes!
If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system. Tony Benn quotes!
We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values. Tony Benn quotes!
Faith is something you die for, doctrine is something you kill for. There are all the differences in the world. Tony Benn quotes!
I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralize them. Tony Benn quotes!
There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons. Tony Benn quotes!
You have to try to build support around causes. We’re uniting to campaign on a single issue, and it’s never just a single issue; it’s always more than that.
Tony Benn Quotes They are Building an Empire
My filing system is messy but orderly. Tony Benn
Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters. Tony Benn
I am on the right wing of the middle of the road and with a strong radical bias. Tony Benn quotes!
There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.
Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.
Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence. Reference.
The Marxist analysis has got nothing to do with what happened in Stalin’s Russia: it’s like blaming Jesus Christ for the Inquisition in Spain.
The one thing that is absolutely essential is that there shouldn’t be any governmental control [of the media] directly or indirectly. Tony Benn quotes!
Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn’t believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.
Tony Benn Quotes Communism
All war represents a failure of diplomacy. Tony Benn
My day rotates around my family. I am very lucky. Tony Benn
If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.
The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians. Tony Benn quotes!
We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.
Faith is something you die for, doctrine is something you kill for. There are all the differences in the world.
I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralize them.
I can’t go to bed if I haven’t done my diary. I always record them just as I’ve always recorded all my interviews and speeches.
At the end of my life, I was told to vote for pensioners; I’m not in favor of means tests for pensioners or anybody. Tony Benn quotes!
It’s the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you’re mad, then dangerous, then there’s a pause and then you can’t find anyone who disagrees with you.
Normally, people give up parliament because they want to do more business or spend more time with family. My wife said, ‘Why don’t you say you’re giving up to devote more time to politics?’. And that is what I have done.
Tony Benn Quotes Eu
The Tory party is the enemy of democracy. Tony Benn quotes!
An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. Tony Benn quotes!
The exhaustion of old age is something people who are younger don’t fully appreciate. Tony Benn quotes!
The uncut diaries are 16 million words. It’s very tiring to do your diary every night before you go to bed. Tony Benn quotes!
I’ve had a very full life, and I’ve enjoyed it very much. I’ve learned a great deal and feel indebted to all the people who have worked so hard.
I see myself as an old man and an unqualified teacher to the nation. I think being a teacher is probably the most important thing you can be in politics.
I’m not frightened about death. I don’t know why, but I just feel that at a certain moment your switch is switched off, and that’s it. And you can’t do anything about it.
The Establishment decided Thatcher’s ideas were safer with a strong Blair government than with a weak Major government. We are given all these personalities to choose between to disguise the fact that the policies are the same.
Someone comes every morning at nine o’clock to see if I am still alive. I do get lonely, yes, but I have children who come and see me. I see all my children every week, and there are the grandchildren, too.
Age does take it out of you, and I don’t have the energy I had before. Sometimes I have breakfast and sit in this chair, and I wake up and it is lunchtime. In the past, the idea of sleeping through a morning would have horrified me, but you have to accept the limitations that old age imposes on you.
Tony Benn Quotes Power
When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t like it you can change it.
I think democracy is not a destination. I don’t think socialism is a railway station and if we catch the right train with the right driver, we’ll get there. I think it’s a way of thinking about things and every generation has to do it again.
It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an instrument that will secure political solutions… They can see that the parliamentary democracy we boast of is becoming a sham.
The nature of the economic system should be a matter for public choice, and free market capitalism should not be accepted without any discussion of the rich variety of alternatives … Unlike civil laws, economic laws are imposed on people with all the authority of immutable laws of nature. But the economy is created by people, supported by government intervention, regulation, statute and subsidy, and implemented in such a way that it gives substantial wealth and power to a privileged few, while the majority face a life of relentless work, stress and periodic financial insecurity.
If democracy is destroyed in Britain it will not be the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights.
Christians believe that God created man, and humanists believe that man invented God. But whichever way you look at it, we’re brothers and sisters. Either we’re brothers and sisters because we’re children of God, or because we’ve banded together to invent God. So the ethics of the humanist and the ethics of some Christians are very similar. We don’t want to create divisions between humanists and Liberation Theologians any more than we want between the New Worker and the Trots. It’s not helpful. Tony Benn
People would do well to ask themselves how many of their ambitions and aspirations derive from the type of economic system they inhabit and the insecurity and exhaustion it creates, and question the sense and purpose of a society where control of a large portion of life is abdicated under contract in the labour market, and where immense creativity and potential is stifled by the need to do difficult and repetitive tasks in order to earn a wage.
Tony Benn Quotes Toughen Up
I’ve made every mistake – but mistakes are how you learn. Tony Benn quotes!
Middle class Labor leaders will be recaptured by the establishment when they die.
Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself. Tony Benn quotes!
The peace movement didn’t stop Iraq but I don’t think Blair would be able to go along and support an Iranian war.
I believe the more difficult the circumstances, the more people will be inclined to trust those in charge at the moment.
I think if journalists were responsible for international policy we’d have a nuclear war every week. Tony Benn quotes!
I’ve been a member of the Labor Party sixty-five years, and I remain in it, but I think it’s all about campaigning for justice and peace, and if you do that, you get a lot of support.
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. Every time I see a pensioner who cannot manage, I know that he is a victim of market forces
The quickest way to get to the top in society is probably to be a Blair Babe now. And then all of a sudden you find you’re invited to parties. I don’t want to be cynical, because I’m not. But I’ve seen it happen to so many people who move from the left to the right so damn quickly.
I’ve got four lovely children and ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don’t feel anyone listens to them. Reference
If democracy is ever to be threatened, it will not be by revolutionary groups burning government offices and occupying the broadcasting and newspaper offices of the world. It will come from disenchantment, cynicism and despair caused by the realization that the New World Order means we are all to be managed and not represented.
I think if you do have democracy it will transform the world because if the millions of people who die live on a dollar a day, had the vote, they would redistribute the wealth of the world, and the people at the top are not prepared to see that happen.