Tony Benn famous quotes

No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his or her hands. Nor does any American President have power approaching this
-- Tony Benn

#Hands #President #Doe

If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.
-- Tony Benn

#People #Politics #Helping

We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role.
-- Tony Benn

#War #July #Play

Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.
-- Tony Benn

#Inspirational #Photography #Photographer

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?' If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.
-- Tony Benn

#Powerful #Exercise #People

The Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it - a bit like Christians in the Church of England.
-- Tony Benn

#Christian #Party #Church

The Tory party is the enemy of democracy.
-- Tony Benn

#Party #Enemy #Democracy

A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for; there is all the difference in the world
-- Tony Benn

#Differences #Politics #Doctrine

Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself.
-- Tony Benn

#Progress #Fuel #Politics

After the war people said, 'If you can plan for war, why can't you plan for peace?' When I was 17, I had a letter from the government saying, 'Dear Mr. Benn, will you turn up when you're 17 1/2? We'll give you free food, free clothes, free training, free accommodation, and two shillings, ten pence a day to just kill Germans.' People said, well, if you can have full employment to kill people, why in God's name couldn't you have full employment and good schools, good hospitals, good houses?
-- Tony Benn

#War #School #Government

An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.
-- Tony Benn

#Healthy #Educated #Harder

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.
-- Tony Benn

#Creativity #Mad #Innovation

The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.
-- Tony Benn

#House #Politics #Politician

I think very often the boat-rockers turn out to be the people who are building the craft
-- Tony Benn

#Thinking #People #Crafts

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

#Running #Office #Intellectual

It is tempting to deny, but if you deny you confirm what you won't deny.
-- Tony Benn

#Deny #Tempting

The Civil Service is a bit like a rusty weathercock. It moves with opinion then it stays where it is until another wind moves it in a different direction
-- Tony Benn

#Moving #Wind #Politics

When you get to No 10, you've climbed there on a little ladder called 'the status quo'. And when you are there, the status quo looks very good
-- Tony Benn

#Politics #Littles #Looks

I have had the advantage of a radical Christian upbringing
-- Tony Benn

#Christian #Politics #Advantage

In the end, the tragedy of Harold Wilson was that you couldn't believe a word he said
-- Tony Benn

#Believe #Tragedy #Politics

I've been a member of the Labour 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.
-- Tony Benn

#Party #Thinking #Years

There is no final victory, as there is no final defeat. There is just the same battle. To be fought, over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.
-- Tony Benn

#Victory #Battle #Finals

Workers are not going to be fobbed off with a few shares...or by a carbon copy of the German system of co-determination.
-- Tony Benn

#Determination #Share #Carbon

Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end.
-- Tony Benn

#Energy #Common #Ends

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

#Creativity #Ambition #Order

The 1973 Labour Conference will have before it the most radical programme the Party has prepared since 1945.
-- Tony Benn

#Party #Radical #Conferences

I sometimes wish the trade unionists who work in the mass media, those who are writers and broadcasters and secretaries and printers and lift operators of Thomson House would remember that they too are members of our working class movement and have a responsibility to see that what is said about us is true.
-- Tony Benn

#Responsibility #Media #Class

Britain is the only colony in the British Empire and it is up to us now to liberate ourselves.
-- Tony Benn

#Empires #Britain #British

I think the truth is that the Labour Party isn't believed any more because people suspect it will say anything to get votes. The rebuilding of some radical alternatives to Thatcherism - and by that I mean all-party Thatcherism - will require us to do some very difficult things
-- Tony Benn

#Party #Mean #Thinking

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

#War #Thinking #Long

I think Mrs Thatcher did more damage to democracy, equality, internationalism, civil liberties, freedom in this country than any other Prime Minister this century. When the euphoria surrounding her departure subsides you will find that in a year or two's time there will not be a Tory who admits ever supporting her. People in the street will say, thank God she's gone
-- Tony Benn

#Country #Thinking #Years

In developing our industrial strategy for the period ahead, we have the benefit of much experience. Almost everything has been tried at least once
-- Tony Benn

#Benefits #Politics #Strategy

Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation
-- Tony Benn

#Mean #Self #Community

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.
-- Tony Benn

#War #Failure #Diplomacy

I am on the right wing of the middle of the road and with a strong radical bias.
-- Tony Benn

#Strong #Wings #Prejudice

There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.
-- Tony Benn

#Suicide #War #Differences

We used to have a War Office, but now we have a Ministry of Defence, nuclear bombs are now described as deterrents, innocent civilians killed in war are now described as collateral damage and military incompetence leading to US bombers killing British soldiers is cosily described as friendly fire. Those who are in favour of peace are described as mavericks and troublemakers, whereas the real militants are those who want the war.
-- Tony Benn

#Peace #Military #Real

I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner
-- Tony Benn

#Politics #Peers #Persistent

If the Queen can reject the advice of a minister on a little thing like a postage stamp, what would happen if she rejected the advice of the Prime Minister on a major matter? If the Crown personally can reject advice, then, of course, the whole democratic facade turns out to be false
-- Tony Benn

#Queens #Advice #Crowns

Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten
-- Tony Benn

#Jam #Politics #Tomorrow

The crisis that we inherit when we come to power will be the occasion for fundamental change and not the excuse for postponing it
-- Tony Benn

#Politics #Fundamentals #Excuse

I try to operate on two unconnected levels. One on the practical level of action in which I am extremely cautious and conservative. The second is the realm of ideas where I try to be very free
-- Tony Benn

#Ideas #Two #Trying

The flag of radicalism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen
-- Tony Benn

#Years #Flags #Radicalism

Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.
-- Tony Benn

#Important #Politics #Broadcasting

Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence.
-- Tony Benn

#Suffering #Today #Britain

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

#Party #Years #Politics

Through talk, we tamed kings, restrained tyrants, averted revolution
-- Tony Benn

#Kings #Tyrants #Revolution

She believes in something. It is an old-fashioned idea
-- Tony Benn

#Believe #Ideas #Politics

It would be as unthinkable to try to construct the Labour Party without Marx as it would to be to establish university faculties of astronomy,anthropology or psychology without permitting the study of Copernicus, Darwin or Freud, and still expect such faculties to be taken seriously
-- Tony Benn

#Party #Taken #Psychology

Marxism is now a world faith and must be allowed to enter into a continuous dialogue with other world faiths, including religious faiths
-- Tony Benn

#Religious #Other Worlds #Politics

It is wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name, as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his
-- Tony Benn

#Jesus #Names #Done

We are paying a heavy political price for 20 years in which, as a party, we have played down our criticism of capitalism and soft-peddled our advocacy of socialism
-- Tony Benn

#Party #Years #Political

I've made every mistake - but mistakes are how you learn.
-- Tony Benn

#Mistake #Making Mistakes #Made

It is government policy to phase out subsidies to nationalised industries. In line with this, the government hopes that the coal industry will be able to operate without the need for assistance apart from social grants.
-- Tony Benn

#Government #Coal #Phases

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.
-- Tony Benn

#Strong #Ideas #Government

The exhaustion of old age is something people who are younger don't fully appreciate.
-- Tony Benn

#Appreciate #People #Age

I don't believe in the hereditary principle in the House of Lords. Imagine going to the dentist, sitting in the chair and he says, 'I'm not a dentist myself, but my father was a dentist and his father before him. Now, open wide!
-- Tony Benn

#Father #Believe #House

I believe the more difficult the circumstances, the more people will be inclined to trust those in charge at the moment.
-- Tony Benn

#Believe #People #Moments

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

#Lying #Class #Roots

I'd rather die on my feet making a speech than die of Alzheimer's - and that's what I'm planning to do.
-- Tony Benn

#Feet #Speech

[I am against] the Treaty of Rome which entrenches laissez faire as its philosophy and chooses bureaucracy as its administrative method.
-- Tony Benn

#Philosophy #Rome #Laissez Faire

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.
-- Tony Benn

#Teacher #Men #Thinking

Someone comes every morning at nine o'clock to see if I am still alive. I do get lonely, yes, but I have the children who come and see me. I see all my children every week, and there are the grandchildren, too.
-- Tony Benn

#Lonely #Morning #Children

I've got four lovely children, ten lovely grandchildren, and I left parliament to devote more time to politics, and I think that what is really going on in Britain is a growing sense of alienation. People don't feel anyone listens to them.
-- Tony Benn

#Children #Thinking #People

The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.
-- Tony Benn

#Mother #Upset #Foreigners

Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is
-- Tony Benn

#Team #Mean #Essence

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.
-- Tony Benn

#Government #Mind #Unions

Undoubtedly the war with Iraq was a tragedy. I think it was also a crime.
-- Tony Benn

#War #Thinking #Iraq

Food movement organic food stores supplies health food products and facilitate with instrumental support in organic agriculture.
-- Tony Benn

#Creativity #Agriculture #Support

When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.
-- Tony Benn

#Witty #Thinking #People

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.
-- Tony Benn

#Stress #Government #Law

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.
-- Tony Benn

#Politics #Capitalism #Manage

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.
-- Tony Benn

#Thinking #Two #People

I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so.
-- Tony Benn

#Want #Politics #More Time

Making mistakes is how you learn.
-- Tony Benn

#Mistake #Making Mistakes #Politics

I am a public library
-- Tony Benn

#Library #Politics #Public Library

The people who have sacrificed their view in order to get to the top have very often left no footprints in the sands of time.
-- Tony Benn

#Views #Order #People

Experience is the only real teacher and if you keep a diary you get three bites at educating yourself - when it happens, when you write it down, and when you reread it and realise you were wrong. 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

#Teacher #Real #Mistake

Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don’t have the freedom to choose.
-- Tony Benn

#Choices #Debt #Freedom To Choose

If I rescued a child from drowning, the press would no doubt headline the story: 'Benn grabs child
-- Tony Benn

#Children #Doubt #Stories

I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world….because if you have power you use it to meet the needs of you and your community.
-- Tony Benn

#Thinking #Community #Democracy

Although socialism is widely held by the establishment to be outdated, the things that are most popular in British society today are little pockets of socialism, where areas of life have been excluded from the crude operation of market forces and are protected for the benefit of the community
-- Tony Benn

#Community #Benefits #Littles

Change from below, the formulation of demands from the populace to end unacceptable injustice, supported by direct action, has played a far larger part in shaping British democracy than most constitutional lawyers, political commentators, historians or statesmen have ever cared to admit. Direct action in a democratic society is fundamentally an educational exercise.
-- Tony Benn

#Educational #Exercise #Political

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

#Views #Political #Liberty

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

#Hate #Men #Thinking

Well, it all began with Democracy. Before we had the vote all the power was in the hands of rich people. If you had money you could get health care, education, look after yourself when you were old, and what democracy did was to give the poor the vote and it moved power from the marketplace to the polling station, from the wallet...to the ballot.
-- Tony Benn

#Hands #People #Giving

Democracy is not just voting every 5 years and watching 'Big Brother' in between and wondering why nothing happens. Democracy is what we do and say where we live and work
-- Tony Benn

#Brother #Years #Voting

People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote.  They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.
-- Tony Benn

#Real #Thinking #People

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.
-- Tony Benn

#Jesus #Russia #Spain

When we have a majority we will do it. I think the days of the Lords are quite genuinely numbered.
-- Tony Benn

#Thinking #Majority #Lord

If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.
-- Tony Benn

#Years #Library #Fifty

The general election of 1983 has produced one important result that has passed virtually without comment in the media. It is that, for the first time since 1945, a political party with an openly socialist policy has received the support of over eight and a half million people. This is a remarkable development by any standards and it deserves some analysis ... the 1983 Labour manifesto commanded the loyalty of millions of voters and a democratic socialist bridge-head in public understanding and support can be made.
-- Tony Benn

#Loyalty #Party #Eight

People say that if we work for the Single European Act, women will get their rights, the water will be purer, and training will be better. That is rubbish. It is part of the attempt to consolidate the EEC.
-- Tony Benn

#Rights #Water #People