All Quotes

"Tony Benn was one of those rare things: a genuine radical for all his life. He was a fearless campaigner and a legendary figure for the Labour movement. Even when I disagreed with him, I always had enormous respect for his brilliance, his passion and his commitment to the people of Britain and of the world."

"[Benn was a] powerful, fearless, relentless advocate for social justice and people's rights."

"In the final decade of an extraordinary political life, Tony Benn was a great friend of Liberty and human rights. He spoke to packed audiences up and down the country against internment and identity cards and for values of internationalism and humanity. And he often shared the stage with speakers of different political stripes with considerable generosity. I shall never forget his many kindnesses to me, including when he ripped up a prepared speech he was about to deliver, in order to make my own nervous and novice remarks sound slightly less unplanned. In an age of spin, he was solid, a signpost and not a weathervane."

"In the evening of his life, Benn became the most successful political prophet in British history, attracting huge audiences up and down the country."

"Tony Benn was a giant of socialism who encouraged me to join Labour in 1977: wonderful inspirational speaker and person: will be deeply missed."

"He did one great thing in his life: he changed the constitution of the House of Lords. Apart from that he symbolised the sort of left-wing nuttiness that nearly destroyed the Labour party in the late 1970s and early 1980s."

"[Benn was an] iconic figure of our age. He will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, a great parliamentarian and a conviction politician. Tony Benn spoke his mind and spoke up for his values. Whether you agreed with him or disagreed with him, everyone knew where he stood and what he stood for. ... He believed in movements and mobilised people behind him for the causes he cared about, often unfashionable ones. In a world of politics that is often too small, he thought big about our country and our world."

"I wasn't a huge fan of Tony Benn, I think he was a fraud in many ways."

"It's about time law enforcement got as organized as organized crime."

"To all those patriots challenging the fraudulent election ...You are on the right side of the law and history."

"Over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent. If we're wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we're right a lot of them will go to jail. Let's have trial by combat."

"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for thirty or forty or fifty years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

"I think the president has to be treated like everyone else. 'Cause I think under the criminal law everybody should be treated the same. I know there are people who would say that the president should be treated stricter. We used to have an era in which the president was treated much more leniently. But I think the right answer is: the president should be treated the same; as far as the criminal law is concerned the president is a citizen."

"Most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine."

"I’m pro-choice. I’m pro-gay rights."

"No, I have not supported that, and I don’t see my position on that changing."

"The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately. And I don't think we want to speculate on the number of casualties. The effort now has to be to save as many people as possible."

"The attacks of September 11 were intended to break our spirit, instead we have emerged stronger and more unified. We feel renewed devotion to the principles of political, economic and religious freedom, the rule of law and respect for human life. We are more determined than ever to live our lives in freedom"

"I don’t need Michael Moore to tell me about September 11."

"Leaders must be optimists. Their vision was beyond the present and set on a future of real peace and true freedom."

"In choosing a president, we really don't choose a Republican or Democrat, a conservative or liberal. We choose a leader."

"There are many qualities that make a great leader but having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader."

"No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?"

"When you confront a problem, you begin to solve it."

"The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don't think he deserves it."

"It would be very dangerous to use the military option [against Iran]. It would not be a good thing. But it would be much more dangerous and much worse if they had nuclear weapons."

"Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don’t know the answer to that. That’s in the hands of other people. But what we do know for sure is the terrorists are going to be at war with us a year, a year and a half from now."

"After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist incidents, "The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond. Bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it."

"I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. I was there working with them. I was there guiding things. I was there bringing people there. But I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them."

"Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors. … History demonstrates that democracy usually follows good governance, not the reverse."

"...the sky's the limit for all Americans if we have the right kind of leadership."

"We can determine America's future. After all, that's what an election is all about. So let's decide for optimism, not pessimism; for hope, not despair; for strength, not weakness; for victory, not defeat."

"Change is not a destination as hope is not a strategy."

"We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama."

"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."

"Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her e-mails."

"Truth isn't truth."

"Shut up, moron, shut up, shut up."

"China manufactured the virus and let it out, and they deliberately spread it around the world."

"The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate."

"Rudy Giuliani is a problem solver with common sense leadership who made a tremendous and positive difference as Mayor of New York, impacting peoples’ lives for the better."

"This is the accumulation of sixty years of hard work. Many of these watches hold great sentimental value, and he’s being forced to turn all these over under court order"

"Frankly, you have to understand the fact that Rudy Giuliani was a McGovern Democrat, he was endorsed by the Liberal Party when he ran for Mayor. In his heart, he's a Democrat. He's paraded all over this country with Bill Clinton and, in fact, he's very comfortable with Mario Cuomo. But what Rudy Giuliani wants is to be bailed out in the city, in the mess he's in, and everybody understands very clearly in politics that they struck a deal, that Mario's going to continue to be the big spender, save Rudy the options of raising taxes by pouring money statewide into the City of New York and bailing it out."

"And I just want to say one other thing about Mayor Giuliani: As this began, and if you were like me, and in many respects, God, I hope you're not. But in this one small measure, if you're like me, and you're watching and you're confused and depressed and irritated and angry and full of grief, and you don't know how to behave and you're not sure what to do and you don't really... because we've never been through this before... all you had to do at any moment was watch the Mayor. Watch how this guy behaved. Watch how this guy conducted himself. Watch what this guy did. Listen to what this guy said. Rudolph Giuliani is the personification of courage."

"He's basically Goro in a suit."

"And I wanted to say to the mayor of New York all our concern, our admiration for what has been done after this drama, with such an efficiency, very full of clever and heart. I told him that in the French press, when they mention the mayor of New York, they say "mayor hero" (ph), which is a French expression equivalent to "Rudy the Rock"."

"He's the man of the hour, a man whose extraordinary grace under pressure in the days since this devastating attack has led him to be called America's mayor. He's the mayor of New York City, ladies and gentlemen, Rudy Giuliani."

"Giuliani's performance ensures that he will be remembered as the greatest mayor in the city's history."

"The eight years he spent terrorizing the poor, the homeless, the artistic community, the queer community, the minority communities in New York City should not be forgotten."

"Giuliani symbolizes the civic contributions that led to New York becoming one of the safest cities in the world, a city where people need no longer fear violence. [...] I believe that he has, through his political efforts, saved more human lives than most people alive today."