José Alberto 'Pepe' Mujica Cordano, Uruguayan politician, farmer, and former president of Uruguay who served from 2010-2015 is also known as José Mujica and is famous for his simple lifestyle and his contribution as a philanthropist.
On May 20, 1935, José Mujica was born in Montevideo, Uruguay to Demetrio Mujica and Lucy Cordano. José Mujica is described as the 'world's humblest head of state' because he donated most of his monthly income, $12,000, to charities and small-scale entrepreneurs.
Before becoming president of Uruguay, José Mujica was a former guerilla who lived on a farm and was tortured and imprisoned by the Uruguayan military regime for 14 years. José Mujica began his political career in 1989 when he formed the Movement Of Popular Participation (MPP) political party and was soon appointed Minister of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries.
José Mujica had a successful tenure as president of Uruguay and has been awarded several awards, including the highest honors and highest orders of merit.
Check out these unique José Mujica quotes about politics, philosophy, power, wealth, life, and more to help you forge a better future, defend your rights and fulfill your dreams in life.
José Mujica Quotes About Politics
(The quotes from José Mujica on politics are inspiring.)
Take a look at some of these José Mujica quotes here about politics and philosophy.
“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.”
- May 31, 2018, www.theglobalamericans.org, Benjamin Waddell.
"Man does not govern the forces that he has unleashed, but rather, it is these forces that govern man."
"Now we are occupying the temple of the market god. This god organizes our economy, our politics, our habits, our lives, and even provides us with rates and credit cards and gives us the appearance of happiness."
"The modern man is always in a hurrybecause if the economy does not grow, it is a tragedy."
“We can almost recycle everything now. 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.”
- October 28, 2021, www.africa-press.net.
“We head of state should live like the majority and not like the minority.”
- October 23, 2014, www.huffpost.com, Roque Planas.
“Some people love money and get into politics. If they love money so much, they should get into commerce, industry, or do whatever they want - it's no sin. But politics is for serving the people.”
- October 29, 2016, www.modernghana.com, Sir Article.
"Politics is the struggle for everyone’s happiness."
“Fascism in Uruguay did not begin just with the military coup of 1973, but years before, even when there was still a government with a constitution and parliament.”
- November 3, 1986, www.nytimes.com, Shirley Christian.
“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.”
- November 30, 2009, 'www.archive.indianexpress.com, Associated Press.'
“Businesses just want to increase their profits; it's up to the government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have the money to buy the goods they produce. It's no mystery - the less poverty, the more commerce. The most important investment we can make is in human resources.”
- July 3, 2014, 'borgenproject.org, Andrea Blinkhorn.'
"The globalized economy has no other driving force than the private interest of a very few."
"Europe has an economic crisis that is also political. It has unleashed a number of events that are ruling them. It is the events that govern men and not men that govern events."
"Are we governing globalization or is globalization governing us? Is it possible to speak of solidarity and say that 'we are all together' in an economy based on ruthless competition? How far does our fraternity extend?"
"If I worried about pollsters, I wouldn't be president."
"I'm just sick of the way things are. We're in an age in which we can't live without accepting the logic of the market. Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy... What we have left is the automatization of doing what the market tells us."
“The political climate during a campaign is not the best climate for reasonable debate.”
- October 2, 2013, www.reuters.com, Felipe Llambias.
“The interaction of those factors and others keeps us living in prehistory, and today it is impossible to renounce war when politics fails.”
- September 24, 2013, speakola.com.
José Mujica Quotes On Life
Here are some of José Mujica's quotes that focus on his personal life and views on some world issues.
"Power doesn’t change people, it only reveals who they really are."
“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.”
- October 28, 2021, www.africa-press.net
"Even though the economy is globalized, our heart, our subjectivity cannot globalize."
"Freedom is so that we may think differently because agreeing does not require freedom."
"The impossible takes a bit more,and defeated are only those who lower their arms and resign their dreams."
"To be free is to spend most of the time in your life doing the things you enjoy."
"I can live well with what I have. I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more."
"It is possible to have a world with better humanity, but perhaps today the first task is to save lives."
“I am an austere president.”
- May 16, 2014, www.transcripts.cnn.com.
"I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live. My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress."
“I learned that one can always start again.”
- January 4, 2013, www.nytimes.com, Simon Romero.
“If you don't have many possessions, then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself.”
- November 15, 2012, www.bbc.com, Vladimir Hernandez.
"Defeated are those who stop fighting, dead are those who do not fight to live."
“I have the goal of getting together 30 or 40 poor kids and bringing them to live with me.”
- December 16, 2013, www.theguardian.com, Jonathan Watts.
"If we aspire in this humanity to consume the way that the average American does, three planets will be needed in order to live."
"Don't let the youth be stolen from within you. Outside inevitably takes time. But there is a pliable youth, in a territory inside, looking at ourselves, and it is attached to a very simple and very small word: solidarity with the human condition."
"The way things are going; it is not possible to satisfy that feeling of extravagance that we have."
José Mujica Quotes On Farming
These quotes from José Mujica on the farming show how far hard work and sacrifice can take you.
“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.”
- July 3, 2014, www.borgenproject.org, Andrea Blinkhorn.
"I don't want to be an apologist for poverty, but I can't stand wasting, useless spending, wasted energy, and having to live squandering stuff."
“There are people who say that you can't experiment ... That condemns you to failure.”
- February 13, 2014, www.reuters.com, Malena Castaldi and Felipe Llambias.
"The life of a parasite is not worthy, but neither can you live anything other than to work. As simple as that."
“If I asked people to live as I live, they would kill me.”
- December 13, 2013, www.theguardian.com, Jonathan Watts.
"We promise a life of consuming and squandering. But this is a countdown against nature, against the future of mankind."
"In life, you can fall down 1000 times but the point is to have the willingness to stand up and to start again."
"It is possible to eliminate poverty from the planet. It is possible to create stability. It will be possible for future generations if they begin to reason as a species and not just as individuals... If our dreams are to come true, we will have to control ourselves or we will die."
"We destroy the forests, the real forests, and introduce anonymous forests of cement."
Interesting José Mujica Quotes
Check out these other interesting José Mujica quotes to inspire you and give you insights into his life.
"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."
"I do not look back because the real today was born in the fertile ashes of yesterday."
“We will be at war until Nature demandsthat we become civilized.”
- March 24, 2015, www.upsidedownworld.org, Carlos Gabetta.
"There is no use whining about the inevitable. The inevitable has to be confronted."
“The world cries out for global rules that respect the achievements of science.”
- September 24, 2013, www.news.un.org.
"I give myself the luxury of saying what I want."
"I carry an enormous social debt and the need to defend the Amazon, the seas, our great rivers in America."
“I have the duty to fight for tolerance for those who are different and with whom we have differences and disagreements. We do not need tolerance for those with whom we agree.”
- September 24, 2013, www.speakola.com, Tony Wilson.
“I may appear to be an eccentric old man...But this is a free choice.”
- November 15, 2012, www.bbc.co.uk, Vladimir Hernandez.
“No country can solve climate change alone; we have to take global measures.”
- September 24, 2013, www.sbs.com.au, SBS Dateline.
"There are things that become valuable when they are lost. They are all dreams that walk through the streets chasing after emotions."
"To live in accordance with how one thinks. Be yourself and don't try to impose your criteria on the rest. I don't expect others to live like me. I want to respect people's freedom, but I defend my freedom."
“The way the banks behave is frankly unbearable. I didn't rob it for me. I expropriated resources for a struggle. If I had robbed for myself that would be different.”
- September 24, 2014, www.journeyman.tv, David Potts.
"My definition of poor is those who need too much. Because those who need too much are never satisfied."
“The world will always need a revolution. That doesn't mean shooting and violence. A revolution is when you change your thinking. Confucianism and Christianity were both revolutionary.”
- December 13, 2013, www.theguardian.com, Jonathan Watts.
“When you have a lot of solitude, any living thing becomes a companion.”
- May 15, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com, Mary Beth Sheridan.
"He always dreams of finishing the accounts, until one day the heart stops and goodbye."
"Being reactionary is the pathology of the conservative. It is gone backward and comes from a dogmatic and closed mindset. The pathology of the left is infantilism. It is the permanent confusion of an illusion with reality."
"On the longest road is the shortest journey."
"Between madness and sanity, there is a shifting boundary. It is impossible to explain. Time slows down and you have to try to fill it. You don't have anything but solitude."
Editorial credit: ymphotos / Shutterstock.com
