Jose Mujica quotes:

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

I have a way of life that I don't change just because I am a president. I earn more than I need, even if it's not enough for others. For me, it is no sacrifice, it's a duty.

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.

The world cries out for global rules that respect the achievements of science.

Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle and always want more and more.

I don't want to be an apologist for poverty, but I can't stand waste, useless spending, wasted energy and having to live squandering stuff.

Publicly, I've never talked about Argentina.

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.

The fight against the drug smuggling is lost worldwide.

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.

We applied a very simple principle: Recognize the facts. Abortion is old as the world. Gay marriage, please - it's older than the world. We had Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, please. To say it's modern, come on, it's older than we are. It's an objective reality that it exists. For us, not legalizing it would be to torture people needlessly.

I'm not the apocalypse nor the promised land.

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.

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

I am an austere president.

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

We can almost recycle everything now. 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.

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

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'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live. My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress.

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.

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

To live 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. And that comes with the courage to say what you think, even if sometimes others don't share those views.

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

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

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.

The kids of today have to be better than us. We must strive to create tools adequate for human beings that come with other things that are, at least, different from those we used to have.

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

This is a matter of freedom. 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,

Businesses just want to increase their profits; it's up to the government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have the money to buy the goods they produce. It's no mystery - the less poverty, the more commerce. The most important investment we can make is in human resources.

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."

What was my great sin? To have revealed the private property of the bank - well if this is being a criminal, then maybe I'm a great criminal.

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.

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.

Uruguay is a country which has grown from immigration, people from all over. That is our origin.

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

If I asked people to live as I live, they would kill me,

In life you can fall down 1000 times but the point is to have the willingness to stand up and to start again.

But we think as people and countries, not as a species.

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

I was no assassin. I got out during the amnesty because I had not committed any violent crimes.

We have sacrificed the old immaterial gods, and now we are occupying the temple of the Market-God. He organizes our economy, our politics, our habits, our lives, and even provides us with rates and credit cards and gives us the appearance of happiness.

Help does not mean to intervene. I will not meddle if I am not invited to do so. But if I can serve as a go-between with my experience, I will support the government's call for dialogue with the rebel forces who also have their problems, who also have their fears. I think all us Latin Americans have to help.

What's sad is that an 80-year-old grandpa has to be the open-minded one. Old people aren't old because of their age, but because of what's in their heads. They are horrified at this, but they aren't horrified at what's happening in the streets?

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.

I think the ideal way of living is to live like the vast majority of people whom we attempt to serve and represent.

I may appear to be an eccentric old man... But this is a free choice.

I've seen some springs that ended up being terrible winters. We human beings are gregarious. We can't live alone. For our lives to be possible, we depend on society. It's one thing to overturn a government or block the streets. But it's a different matter altogether to create and build a better society, one that needs organization, discipline and long-term work. Let's not confuse the two of them. I want to make it clear: I feel sympathetic with that youthful energy, but I think it's not going anywhere if it doesn't become more mature.

From afar, it seems like a war without a solution and like a long sacrifice for the entire country. So when a president appears who tries to open a path to peace, I think that deserves support, because there is a lot of pain, and if they try to settle scores, the war will never end. But there is an opportunity. I would feel selfish if I did not help in any way.

It seems that we have been born only to consume and to consume, and when we can no longer consume, we have a feeling of frustration, and we suffer from poverty, and we are auto-marginalized.

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.