José Mujica Quotes

The fight against the dirty economy, drug trafficking, theft & fraud, corruption - all of these contemporary scourges which were adopted by this opposite set of values, those who maintain that we are happier when we are richer no matter what means are used.

I have the duty to fight for tolerance for those who are different and with whom we have differences and disagreements. We do not need tolerance for those with whom we agree. Tolerance is the foundation of peaceful coexistence, understanding that we are all different in this world.

I also come with a huge social debt and with the need to defend the Amazon, the seas, and our great rivers of America.

I also bear the consequences of the electronic surveillance, which does nothing but create the distrust that poisons us needlessly.

I bear upon my shoulders the indigenous cultures, the remains of colonialism in the Malvinas, and the futile and regrettable blockades of Cuba under the Caribbean sun.

I am greatly anguished by the future that I will not see, and to which I have committed myself. Yes, it is possible to have a world with better humankind, but perhaps today the main task is to save life...

So I salute the efforts and agreements being made. And I will adhere to them, as a ruler. I know some things I’m saying are not easy to digest. But we must realize that the water crisis and the aggression to the environment is not the cause. The cause is the model of civilization that we have created. And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life.

This is why I say, in my humble way of thinking, that the problem we are facing is political. The old thinkers. Epicurus, Seneca and even the Aymara put it this way, a poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more.” This is a cultural issue.

I’m not talking about returning to the days of the caveman, or erecting a “monument to backwardness.” But we cannot continue like this, indefinitely, being ruled by the market, on the contrary, we have to rule over the market.

Today, man does not govern the forces he has unleashed, but rather, it is these forces that govern man; and life. Because we do not come into this planet simply to develop, just like that, indiscriminately. We come into this planet to be happy. Because life is short and it slips away from us. And no material belonging is worth as much as life, and this is fundamental.But if life is going to slip through my fingers, working and over-working in order to be able to consume more, and the consumer society is the engine-because ultimately, if consumption is paralyzed, the economy stops, and if you stop economy, the ghost of stagnation appears for each one of us, but it is this hyper-consumption that is harming the planet. And this hyper-consumption needs to be generated, making things that have a short useful life, in order to sell a lot. Thus, a light bulb cannot last longer than 1000 hours. But there are light bulbs that last 100,000 hours! But these cannot be manufactured, because the problem is the market, because we have to work and we have to sustain a civilization of “use and discard”, and so, we are trapped in a vicious cycle. These are problems of a political nature, which are showing us that it’s time to start fighting for a different culture.

What are we thinking?...What would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household [as] Germans? How much oxygen would we have left? Does this planet have enough resources so... eight billion can have the same level of consumption & waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet... Are we ruling over globalization or is globalization ruling over us? Is it possible to speak of solidarity and of “being all together” in an economy based on ruthless competition? How far does our fraternity go? I am not saying any of to undermine the importance of this event. On the contrary, the challenge ahead of us is of a colossal magnitude and the great crisis is not an ecological crisis, but rather a political one.

That NATO advance makes no sense. It is going to lead us again to a division of the world.

Anyone who looks at a map to say that Venezuela could be a threat has to be quite mad. Venezuelans have a marvelous Constitution – the most audacious in all of Latin America.

We are a republican voice for the world – a proclamation that has been interpreted to signpost a “possible future, a path, however modest, to take for the common good with politics as its ethical base and honesty as its guiding light.

Locked up, I almost went mad... Now I'm a prisoner of my own freedom to think and decide as I wish. I cultivate that freedom and fight for it. I may make mistakes, some huge, but one of my few virtues is I say what I think... I re-read Plato in search of keys to understand what is going on, for nothing is completely new...
Politics, which should rule human relations, has succumbed to economics and become a mere administrator...
My definition of poverty is the one we owe to Seneca: It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor... I have the aggressive courage to speak out. It's not done in the modern world, where people conceal and disguise their feelings. Maybe that's why I get people's attention... This [marijuana] law is a trial. It doesn't mean we have the final answer....The only thing I'm sure of is that the policy of combating drugs which has been enforced for decades is a crashing failure.... I think recognition of gay marriage, abortion and the law on marijuana all represent progress. But they will really achieve something when there is less of a gap between the poor, the destitute and the very rich... You know what getting old means? No longer wanting to leave home.