Politics

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In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell, if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers.

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He who accepts the class struggle cannot fail to accept civil wars, which in every class society are the natural, and under certain conditions inevitable, continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle. To repudiate civil war, or to forget about it, is to fall into extreme opportunism and renounce the socialist revolution.

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I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.

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The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.

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I could produce innumerable instances from my own observation of events imputed to the profound skill and address of a minister, which, in reality, were either mere effects of negligence, weakness, humour, passion, or pride; or at best, but the natural course of things left to themselves.

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Many people hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore. Instead, a politician is a shadow they watch on television, not knowing whether he is speaking impromptu or reading a text written for him by anonymous advisers or experts from a screen hidden behind the cameras. Citizens no longer perceive their politician as a living human being, for they never have and will never see him that way. They see only his image, created for them by tv, radio and newspaper commentators.

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What do you want to be a sailor for? There are greater storms in politics than you will ever find at sea. Piracy, broadsides, blood on the decks. You will find them all in politics.

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Those who rebelled against totalitarian rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any of those who paid for our present freedom in one way or another.

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You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.

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Don't you think that's the way to persuade more companies to come to this region and get more jobs, because I want them, for the people who are unemployed. Not always standing there as moaning minnies. Now stop it!