We prefer to find an explanation for why things are not perfect, and these rarely stand up to close scrutiny.
I'd rather die on my feet making a speech than die of Alzheimer's - and that's what I'm planning to do.
If one meets a powerful person - Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates - ask them five questions: 'What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?' If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.
I don't believe in the hereditary principle in the House of Lords. Imagine going to the dentist, sitting in the chair and he says, 'I'm not a dentist myself, but my father was a dentist and his father before him. Now, open wide!
Well, it all began with Democracy. Before we had the vote all the power was in the hands of rich people. If you had money you could get health care, education, look after yourself when you were old, and what democracy did was to give the poor the vote and it moved power from the marketplace to the polling station, from the wallet. . . to the ballot.
Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.
Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They open declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
Go after what you really love and find a way to make that work for you, and then you'll be a happy person.
I had already done a lot of research for Rough Riders, keeping notebooks and old photographs. Some of the books were antiques for that time period, with the covers falling off.
What's now urgently needed [to stop environmental disaster] is the international political commitment to take action to avoid dangerous climate change.