I took part in what was actually the last eruption of Marxist internationalism.

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.

I would remind you the lesser of two socialists is still a socialist.

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Whatever the reasons may be, I was very much affected by events of the 1930s – the Spanish Civil War, for example, though I was barely literate.

In a democracy, in a functioning democracy, what would be happening is that popular organizations, unions, political groupings, others would be developing their programs, putting them forth, insisting that their representatives implement those programs.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

From 1945 to 1974, the Western world – including America – was more socialistic than capitalistic, more pro-labor than pro-business.

The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led to many very good things. If you follow the trail, it led to kicking Europeans out of Asia – that saved tens of millions of lives in India alone.

Socialists tend to want to pay people more money to do less work, and capitalists tend to want to provide better products at better prices.

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.

I admire Ralph Nader and Denis Kucinich very much, and insofar as they bring up issues and carry out an educational and organisational function – that’s important, and fine, and I support it.

There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.

The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama’s entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.

When I was a boy we didn’t wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

Well, Marx is having a comeback. I hear him mentioned a lot in terms of the global financial situation and the general sense of injustice out there. A lot of economic experts in America refer to him without actually using the M word, but he’s around.

Socialism, reduced to its simplest legal and practical expression, means the complete discarding of the institution of private property by transforming it into public property, and the division of the resultant public income equally and indiscriminately among the entire population.

Nineteen sixty-eight was one exciting moment in a much larger movement. It spawned a whole range of movements. There wouldn’t have been an international global solidarity movement, for instance, without the events of 1968. It was enormous, in terms of human rights, ethnic rights, a concern for the environment, too.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

After May 1940, the good times were few and far between; first there was the war, then the capitulation, and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews.

Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!

The Revolution did not assume a socialist nature because of support from the U.S.S.R.; it was the other way around: support from the U.S.S.R. was produced by the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution. To such a degree, that when the U.S.S.R. disappears, Cuba keeps on being socialist.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

Socialism never arises in the earlier phases of capitalism, as, for instance, among the pioneers of civilisation in a country where there is plenty of land available for private appropriation by the last comer.

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples‘ money.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

It’s impossible, I think, however much I’d become disillusioned politically or evolve into a post-political person, I don’t think I’d ever change my view that socialism is the best political moment humans have ever come up with.

If segregationists had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate today, I would not be a top contender to be president of the United States.

I spent my life studying communism and Soviet systems.

I did have two dads; one was a socialist, and one was a capitalist. I really decided I would rather be a capitalist.

I was drafted during the Korean War. None of us wanted to go… It was only a couple of years after World War II had ended. We said, ‚Wait a second? Didn’t we just get through with that?‘

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

I was first imprisoned in Pretoria, and then, thereafter, I was taken to Robben Island. I stayed there for a couple of weeks. I was taken back to Pretoria when I was charged in the Rivonia trial, when I was then sent to Robben Island for life.

Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

Homeland or death! Socialism or death! We shall overcome!

The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.

The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man.

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.

Marx and Engels never talked about murdering the bourgeois. According to the old bourgeois concept, the judges were the ones who judged, and the executioners were the ones who executed.

In socialism, private property is anathema, and equal distribution of income the first consideration. In capitalism, private property is cardinal, and distribution left to ensue from the play of free contract and selfish interest on that basis, no matter what anomalies it may present.

I still think like a Marxist in many ways.

At times, I’ve referred to Christ’s miracles, and have said, ‚Well, Christ multiplied the fish and the loaves to feed the people. That is precisely what we want to do with the Revolution and socialism.‘

I could become very rich in Guatemala but by the low method of ratifying my title, opening a clinic, and specialising in allergies. To do that would be the most horrible betrayal of the two ‚I’s‘ struggling inside me: the socialist and the traveller.