Socialists

"Higgins: Is [assassination] only justified if the target is a reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-human rights obscurantist like bin Laden? Enda Kenny: I know you are a good Christian man who has your job to do in here from a political point of view. Many of his victims in the twin towers in New York were of Irish descent or directly Irish."

"In view of the fact that the Royal Family of Britain is one of the wealthiest families in the world and this country is almost sleeping rough, so to speak, figuratively, would you ask the Queen if she might make a contribution towards her own bed and breakfast costs to assist the unfortunate taxpayers, and go easier on them?"

"The overall agenda here is quite simply the ruling classes, or the classes of Europe intend to stride on to the world stage as a powerful economic entity. And they want to be as powerful as the US, meaning they want a stronger foreign policy and a military wing to back them up. But I can assure the Government that the debate will be a very intensive debate, a very vigorous debate and I think the benefit perhaps this time is that certain distractions that were raised the last time would be set aside, and therefore we can concentrate on the more fundamental issues. [...] Take for example this notion that Irish youth would be conscripted into an army. The only people I heard that from was Government ministers in the course of the campaign who said this is being said. Nobody here raised any such red herring. These were the so-called concerns that were being addressed. But the major concerns as to what the Treaty was really about has not been changed one iota."

"Babies also have a civil right not to be kissed by every passing politician."

"Like playing handball against a haystack."

"I only wanted to ask the Tanaiste if he now officially endorses cronyism and patronage in Irish politics."

"How nauseating in view of all this to see Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, reduce this to a game of scrabble . . . to a matter of finding the right words. We now know that Fianna Fáil ministers see nothing wrong with a Minister for Finance taking large amounts of money for personal use from business interests as long as there is no proof that any specific favours were done."

"This is a challenge to the entire trade union movement in Ireland - a declaration of war on the wages and working conditions of all workers."

"Does [the Minister] not find it extraordinary that the High Court is giving every benefit to a major corporation over the small people of Mayo? Is it not incredible that a full hearing of the issues of concern to the people of Mayo will be heard in the autumn, probably in October? In the meantime, the company is allowed to proceed and put everything in place with the like-minded reminder from the High Court that the pipes will have to be taken out again if the decision goes against Shell...Why is Shell so bullish and confident that it will get its pipeline come what may? Has it been secretly assured by the Minister, his predecessor, the Government or Fianna Fáil that it will get its gas in the way it wants regardless of the genuine fears and concerns of decent local people? Has the Government not fallen over itself on every occasion to facilitate this company?"

"Superfluous and should be abolished."

"If this conversion was genuine, we would have to go back 2,000 years to find another as rapid and as radical. Saul’s embrace of Christianity on the road to Damascus stood the test of time but the Taoiseach’s [Bertie Ahern] embrace of socialism on the banks of the Tolka hardly will."

"We want to see measures to implement taxation justice for ordinary working people. We want an end to the policy of many years now, of huge tax concessions for big corporations and a plethora of stealth taxes on ordinary families and ordinary working people."

"Delusional on a Marie Antoinette scale."

"When it comes to scientific matters the ready talkers simply run riot. There are a lot of pseudo-scientists who with a little technical jargon to spatter through their talk are always getting in the limelight by making startling predictions of what the future has in store, using as their text the most recent discovery or invention."

"He doesn't believe a trumpet and a megaphone are part of a scientist's equipment."

"At the People's College in Fort Scott, Kansas, my mother met Arthur Le Sueur, who with Helen Keller, Eugene Debs, and Charles Steinmetz had founded the greatest workers' school in the country. Thousands of farmers and hillbilly men, miners, and other workers took correspondence courses in workers' law and workers' English and workers' history."

"Money is a stupid measure of achievement, but unfortunately it is the only universal measure we have."

"There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions."

"Scientific theories need reconstruction every now and then. If they didn't need reconstruction they would be facts, not theories."

"In a mathematical sense, space is manifoldness, or combination of numbers. Physical space is known as the 3-dimension system. There is the 4-dimension system, there is the 10-dimension system."

"We don't know the why of anything. On that matter we are no further advanced than was the cavedweller. The scientist is contented if he can contribute something toward the knowledge of what is and how it is."

"In this country all a man need to do is to attain a little eminence and immediately he begins to talk. … But the American people are willing to listen to any one who has attained prominence. The main fact is that we've heard a man's name a great many times; that makes us ready to accept whatever he says."

"Some people might say my life is in a rut, but I'm quite happy with what I've got."

"If you're wondering by now who I am, look no further than the mirror, Because I am the greed and fear - and every ounce of hate in you."

"I am out of season all years round - watch machinery roar to my empty sound. Touch my heart and feel winter, hold my hand and be doomed forever."

"If you gave me a fresh carnation, I would only crush its tender petals..."

"A whole street's belief in Sunday's roast beef gets dashed against the Co-op, To either cut down on beer or the kids' new gear, it's a big decision in a town called malice."

"Two lovers kissing amongst the screams of midnight, Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude."

"Days of speed and slow time Mondays - Pissing down with rain on a boring Wednesday..."

"Those braying sheep on my TV screen - Make this boy shout! Make this boy scream!"

"You'll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns - And the public wants what the public gets - but I don't get what this society wants."

"If you see me in the street - look away, 'cause I don't want to ever catch you looking at me, Mr Clean. 'Cause I hate you and your wife, and if I get the chance I'll fuck up your life."

"I first felt a fist - and then a kick, I could now smell their breath, They smelt of pubs - and Wormwood Scrubs - and too many right-wing meetings."

"The more I see - the more I know, The more I know, the less I understand."

"Is happiness real? Or am I so jaded I can't see or feel - like a man been tainted. Numbed by the effect - aware of the muse Too in touch with myself - I light the fuse."

"When you're knocked on your back and you life's a flop, When you're down on the bottom and there's nothing else but to shout to the top!"

"The lords and ladies pass a ruling That sons and girls go hand in land From good stock and the best breeding Paid for by the servile class."

"I play out my role, I've even been out walking - They tell me that it helps, but I know when I'm beaten..."

"The morning slips away in a Valium haze and catalogues, And numerous cups of coffee, In the afternoon the weekly food is put in bags - as you float off down the high street. The shop windows reflect, play a nameless host to a closet ghost - A picture of your fantasy, a victim of your misery..."

"The fingers feel the lines, they prod the space - your ageing face, The face that was once so beautiful, is still there but unrecognisable..."

"If we get through for two minutes only it will be a start!"

"It's so hard to understand why the world is your oyster but your future's a clam."

"Life is a drink and you get drunk when you're young."

"Our only crime consisted of decreeing our own laws and applying them to all without exception. Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which effected the interests of the United Fruit Company. Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights."

"Unfortunately even the President of the United States of America has made little of his high office, and he too, either through lack of information or other reasons, has lent himself to the campaign of pressure and intimidation against Guatemala."

"So, let this Asian-African Conference be a great success! Make the "Live and let live" principle and the "Unity in diversity" motto the unifying force which brings us all together-to seek in friendly, uninhibited discussion, ways and means by which each of us can live his own life, and let others live their own lives, in their own way, in harmony, and in peace."

"I have often since then asked myself why these five were successful when others, with long records of diplomacy, were unsuccessful, and, in fact, had allowed a bad situation to get worse, so that there was a danger of the conflict spreading. . . . I think that the answer really lies in the fact that those five Prime Ministers brought a fresh approach to bear on the problem. They were not seeking advantage for their own countries. They had no axe of power-politics to grind. They had but one interest-how to end the fighting in such a way that the chances of continuing peace and stability were enhanced. . . ."

"Look, the peoples of Asia raised their voices, and the world listened. It was no small victory and no negligible precedent! The five Prime Ministers did not make threats. They issued no ultimatum, they mobilised no troops. Instead they consulted together, discussed the issues, pooled their ideas, added together their individual political skills and came forward with sound and reasoned suggestions which formed the basis for a settlement of the long struggle in Indo-China."

"In this struggle, some success has already been scored. I think it is generally recognised that the activity of the Prime Ministers of the Sponsoring Countries which invited you here had a not unimportant role to play in ending the fighting in Indo-China."

"What can we do? We can do much! We can inject the voice of reason into world affairs. We can mobilise all the spiritual, all the moral, all the political strength of Asia and Africa on the side of peace. Yes, we! We, the peoples of Asia and Africa, 1,400,000,000 strong, far more than half the human population of the world, we can mobilise what I have called the Moral Violence of Nations in favour of peace. We can demonstrate to the minority of the world which lives on the other continents that we, the majority are for peace, not for war, and that whatever strength we have will always be thrown on to the side of peace."