Tony Benn Quotes

Author Image

Tony Benn

Profession : Politician

Birth : April 3, 1925

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

Tony Benn

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

Tony Benn

I think if you're going to be committed to doing anything, you really have to care about it, and I suppose that is a romantic idea.

Tony Benn

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

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

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

Tony Benn

Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.

Tony Benn

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

Normally, people give up parliament because they want to do more business or spend more time with family. My wife said 'why don't you say you're giving up to devote more time to politics?'. And it is what I have done.

Tony Benn

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

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

My day rotates around my family. I am very lucky.

Tony Benn

Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence.

Tony Benn

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

I can't go to bed if I haven't done my diary. I always record them just as I've always recorded all my interviews and speeches.

Tony Benn

My filing system is messy but orderly.

Tony Benn

At the end of my life, I was told to vote for it for pensioners; I' m not in favour of means tests for pensioners or anybody.

Tony Benn

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

Tony Benn

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

Tony Benn

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

Tony Benn