"Former Prime minister Tage Erlander spoke on radio a year ago about the people's home and about how he visited his senile mother at a residential hospital outside of Karlstad. When he came to visit her she told him; I'm so happy here. Everyone is so nice to me and I get good care and nice food. But who is paying for all this? Is it you Tage? And Erlander said; no I'm not paying, you're paying for this yourself mother. You have paid for this your entire life. You have grown up in this society, you have taken care of the family all these years, you have been a good citizen. And you have the right to be taken care of when you get old and infirm, not because of charity, not because you have a thick wallet, but because you are a Swedish citizen. This is your society, our society. You have the same right to this as anyone else. That is the welfare state and it is our greatest pride!"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Olof Palme, August 28, 1985, in debate with the leader of the opposition before 1985 years general election.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Olof_Palme
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Olof Palme
Olof Palme (January 30, 1927 – February 28, 1986) was a Swedish Social Democratic politician. He was Prime Minister from 1969 to 1976 and from 1982 until his assassination in 1986.
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Olof Palme →
Related Quotes
"For us, democracy is a question of human dignity. This includes the political liberties, the right to freely express …"
"Apartheid cannot be reformed. It has to be eliminated."
"Human beings will find a balanced situation when they do good things not because God says it, but because they feel l…"
"They build their democratic institutions with pedantic conscientiousness."
"The bourgeoisie seemed to live in the illusion that an effort for peace presupposed an almost unreserved support for …"
"Yet, alongside Western weaknesses, there were also serious problems for the Soviet system, while the American positio…"
"The theorist should not let us forget the poet."
"No longer is it a matter of the narrow roads where traditional beauty is offered in its clarity and obviousness to th…"
"Our problem now is to determine whether the Ethiopian attitude that we discovered was the very essence of our whole w…"
"Surrealism lives! And it is young, ardent, and revolutionary. In 1943 surrealism surely remains, as always, an activi…"