Jose Mujica

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.

Fascism in Uruguay did not begin just with the military coup of 1973, but years before, even when there was still a government with a constitution and parliament.

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

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

A lot of people like a lot of money. They shouldn't go into politics.

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

If I worried about pollsters, I wouldn't be president.

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

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

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!

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

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.