Tony Benn

If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.

— Tony Benn

Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence.

— Tony Benn

I have had the advantage of a radical Christian upbringing

— Tony Benn

I've made every mistake - but mistakes are how you learn.

— Tony Benn

America is now the dominant force and the only countervailing force is Europe.

— Tony Benn

Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself.

— Tony Benn

It is tempting to deny, but if you deny you confirm what you won't deny.

— Tony Benn

Middle class Labour leaders are recaptured by the establishment when they die.

— Tony Benn

Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.

— Tony Benn

A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for; there is all the difference in the world

— Tony Benn

The flag of radicalism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago…

— Tony Benn

I'd rather die on my feet making a speech than die of Alzheimer's - and that's what I'm planning to do.

— Tony Benn

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.

— Tony Benn

Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no…

— Tony Benn

At the end of my life, I was told to vote for it for pensioners; I' m not in favour of means…

— Tony Benn

If I rescued a child from drowning, the press would no doubt headline the story: 'Benn grabs child

— Tony Benn

Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I…

— Tony Benn

I sometimes wish the trade unionists who work in the mass media, those who are writers and broadcasters and secretaries and printers…

— Tony Benn

I'm not frightened about death. I don't know why, but I just feel that at a certain moment your switch is switched…

— Tony Benn

I met somebody once who said, "I'm a lapsed-atheist" by what he meant was, "I don't believe in God but the older…

— Tony Benn

If the Queen can reject the advice of a minister on a little thing like a postage stamp, what would happen if…

— Tony Benn

No medieval monarch in the whole of British history ever had such power as every modern British Prime Minister has in his…

— Tony Benn

The present combination of corporate or commercial control theoretically answerable to politically appointed Boards of Governors is not in any sense a…

— Tony Benn

It is not surprising that more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the ballot box is no longer an…

— Tony Benn

Change always follows the same pattern. If you come up with something new they try and put you off.If that doesn't work…

— Tony Benn

If democracy is destroyed in Britain, it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away.…

— Tony Benn

Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then…

— Tony Benn

We used to have a War Office, but now we have a Ministry of Defence, nuclear bombs are now described as deterrents,…

— Tony Benn

If one meets a powerful person - Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates - ask them five questions: 'What power have…

— Tony Benn

I was radicalised by being a minister. That's when I saw how the system really worked. And that is not a very…

— Tony Benn

I did publish a Bill once called "Common Sense" with a new constitution for Europe called the "Commonwealth of Europe," setting it…

— Tony Benn

When somebody comes up with a progressive idea, to begin with, you're mad, bonkers. Then if you go on, you're dangerous. Then…

— Tony Benn

An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.

— Tony Benn

When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.

— Tony Benn

The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.

— Tony Benn

I am not a reluctant peer but a persistent commoner

— Tony Benn

The way a government treats refugees is very instructive.

— Tony Benn

Through talk, we tamed kings, restrained tyrants, averted revolution

— Tony Benn

Some of the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we've already eaten

— Tony Benn

The peace movement here is the biggest thing in human history.

— Tony Benn