Best Mujica Quotes & Sayings

I've seen some springs that ended up being terrible winters. We human beings are gregarious. We can't live alone. For our lives to be possible, we depend on society. It's one thing to overturn a government or block the streets. But it's a different matter altogether to create and build a better society, one that needs organization, discipline and long-term work. Let's not confuse the two of them. I want to make it clear: I feel sympathetic with that youthful energy, but I think it's not going anywhere if it doesn't become more mature. — Jose Mujica

I don't know whether I like this planet or not. But I have to accept it. — Jose Mujica

A lot of people like a lot of money. They shouldn't go into politics. — Jose Mujica

All my life I've been rowing against the tide. What can I do? It seems I was born that way. — Jose Mujica

A president is a high-level official who is elected to carry out a function. He is not a king, not a god. He is not the witch doctor of a tribe who knows everything. He is a civil servant. I think the ideal way of living is to live like the vast majority of people whom we attempt to serve and represent. — Jose Mujica

It seems that we have been born only to consume and to consume, and when we can no longer consume, we have a feeling of frustration, and we suffer from poverty, and we are auto-marginalized. — Jose Mujica

There are those who believe that power is up above, and they don't notice that it's actually in the hearts of the great masses. — Jose Mujica

It has always been like that with changes. In 1913, we established divorce as a right for women in Uruguay. You know what they were saying back then? That families would dissolve. That it was the end of good manners and society. There has always been a conservative and traditional opinion out there that's afraid of change. When I was young and would go dancing at balls, we'd have to wear suits and ties. Otherwise they wouldn't let us in. I don't think anyone dresses up for dancing parties nowadays. — Jose Mujica

Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle and always want more and more. — Jose Mujica

Worse that drugs is drug trafficking. Much worse. Drugs are a disease, and I don't think that there are good drugs or that marijuana is good. Nor cigarettes. No addiction is good. I include alcohol. The only good addiction is love. Forget everything else. — Jose Mujica

In life you can fall down 1000 times but the point is to have the willingness to stand up and to start again. — Jose Mujica

My definition of poor are those who need too much. Because those who need too much are never satisfied. — Jose Mujica

When you have a lot of solitude, any living thing becomes a companion. — Jose Mujica

I was no assassin. I got out during the amnesty because I had not committed any violent crimes. — Jose Mujica

I learned that one can always start again. — Jose Mujica

What's sad is that an 80-year-old grandpa has to be the open-minded one. Old people aren't old because of their age, but because of what's in their heads. They are horrified at this, but they aren't horrified at what's happening in the streets? — Jose Mujica

The political climate during a campaign is not the best climate for reasonable debate. — Jose Mujica

We applied a very simple principle: Recognize the facts. Abortion is old as the world. Gay marriage, please - it's older than the world. We had Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, please. To say it's modern, come on, it's older than we are. It's an objective reality that it exists. For us, not legalizing it would be to torture people needlessly. — Jose Mujica

Any North American state is more important than Uruguay, in dimensions, in its economic force. — Jose Mujica

If the inmates of Guantanamo want to make their nests in Uruguay, they can do it. — Jose Mujica

I am an austere president. — Jose Mujica

The world cries out for global rules that respect the achievements of science. — Jose Mujica

The kids of today have to be better than us. We must strive to create tools adequate for human beings that come with other things that are, at least, different from those we used to have. — Jose Mujica

I have a way of life that I don't change just because I am a president. I earn more than I need, even if it's not enough for others. For me, it is no sacrifice, it's a duty. — Jose Mujica

There are people who say that you can't experiment ... That condemns you to failure. — Jose Mujica

My goal is to achieve a little less injustice in Uruguay, to help the most vulnerable and to leave behind a political way of thinking, a way of looking at the future that will be passed on and used to move forward. There's nothing short-term, no victory around the corner. I will not achieve paradise or anything like that. What I want is to fight for the common good to progress. Life slips by. The way to prolong it is for others to continue your work. — Jose Mujica

I'll shout it if they want: Down with isms! Up with a Left that is capable of thinking outside the box! In other words, I am more than completely cured of simplifications, of dividing the world into good and evil, of thinking in black and white. I have repented! — Jose Mujica

I have the goal of getting together 30 or 40 poor kids and bringing them to live with me. — Jose Mujica

No addiction is good. — Jose Mujica

Publicly, I've never talked about Argentina. — Jose Mujica

If we lived within our means - by being prudent - the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species. — Jose Mujica

What was my great sin? To have revealed the private property of the bank - well if this is being a criminal, then maybe I'm a great criminal. — Jose Mujica