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

I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more. 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.

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.

Going from one adventure to another, politics achieves little more than perpetuating itself, and as such it delegates its power and spends its time bewildered, fighting for the Government. Out of control, human history marches forward, buying and selling everything and innovating in order to negotiate what is, in a way, non-negotiable...