72+ Ken Livingstone Quotes On Education, Advocacy And Activism

Ken Livingstone was an English politician who served as the first elected Mayor of London from 2000 to 2008. He was a member of the Labour Party and a strong advocate of progressive policies, including the London Living Wage and free public transport. He was a major figure in the left-wing of the Labour Party and was known for his outspoken views on a range of issues. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Ken Livingstone on leadership, education, life.

Top 10 Ken Livingstone Quotes

1. There is now a desperate need for a London-wide left caucus of those interested in the GLC and local councils so that we can compare and discuss what is happening in each borough.
2. World wide capitalism kills more people everyday then Hitler did. And he was crazy.
3. Consultation is a good thing when people agree with you, and a waste of time when people don't agree with you
4. I fear that within 10 years gays, trade union activists and left wing politicians will be led off to the gas chambers.
5. I just long for the day when I wake up and find that the Saudi royal family are swinging from lamp-posts.
6. If I blew my nose the Daily Express and the Daily Mail would say that I am trying to spread germ warfare.
7. Every year the international finance system kills more people than the Second World War. But at least Hitler was mad, you know.
8. Racism serves as the cutting edge of the most reactionary movements. An ideology that starts by declaring one human being inferior to another is the slope whose end is at Auschwitz.
9. My administration will tackle these issues in consultation with the black communities of London.
10. I've met serial killers and professional assassins and nobody scared me as much as MrsT.

Ken Livingstone Short Quotes

• If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It
• Anybody who enjoys being in the House of Commons probably needs psychiatric help.
• Everyone is bisexual. Almost everyone has the sexual potential for anything.
• The British judiciary is one of the most corrupt in the world because of politically active judges.
• You cannot just have a socialist revolution in Norwood and nowhere else.
• I've never declined to do an interview.
• I think it's much more important to keep people in work than have pay rises.
• I swim three times a week.
• Most kids dont get to go their parents wedding.
• What do we do about climate change bearing down upon us?

Ken Livingstone Quotes About Life

To tackle climate change you don't have to reduce your quality of life, but you do have to change the way you live — Ken Livingstone

I would like to sound like James Mason. I reckon if I'd had a better voice I could have been prime minister. It is the most irritating voice in public life. — Ken Livingstone

I've always told the truth. I've often been wrong - but I've never knowingly lied. Not in public life. Because I don't see the need to. — Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone Famous Quotes And Sayings

All the politics of the post-war period was about the clash between the Soviet Union and America, and virtually all issues ended up being subordinated to that. Now, the question is, what is the most a socialist can achieve in a global economy? — Ken Livingstone

When you get into politics, you find that all your worst nightmares about it turn out to be true, and the people who are attracted to large concentrations of power are precisely the ones who should be kept as far away from it as possible. — Ken Livingstone

It would actually be quite nice if the American ambassador in Britain could pay the [congestion] charge that everybody else is paying and not actually try and skive out of it like some chiselling little crook. — Ken Livingstone

I became a councillor back in 1971, so if by this stage in politics I'm making lots of big mistakes, then I shouldn't be here. — Ken Livingstone

The market is a brilliant system for the exchange of goods and services, but it doesn't protect the environment unless it's regulated, it doesn't train your workforce unless it's regulated, and it doesn't give you the long-term investment you want. — Ken Livingstone

I think democracy's undermined when those who own newspapers fill them with trivia rather than real issues. — Ken Livingstone

The American agenda is sweeping everything before it, and although it's not perfect, the EU is better on environmental issues. It's a less rapacious form of capitalism. — Ken Livingstone

It is all very well for people with fine arts degrees, but for ordinary people like myself, we want a statue to look like the person. — Ken Livingstone

You can't expect to work for the Daily Mail group and have the rest of society treat with you respect as a useful member of society, because you are not. — Ken Livingstone

One thing that Chairman Mao did was to end the appalling foot binding of women. That alone justifies the Mao Tse-tung era. — Ken Livingstone

Just because I am critical of the coalition doesn't mean I am anti-English. I am just anti-scumbags. — Ken Livingstone

There needs to be radical development in equality law to create the environment to allow women to stay in work. — Ken Livingstone

I undertake that, in the exercise of my functions of that office I will have regard to any guidance with respect to ethical standards issued by the secretary of state under Section 66 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999. — Ken Livingstone

The problem is that many MPs never see the London that exists beyond the wine bars and brothels of Westminster. — Ken Livingstone

I feel like Galileo going before the Inquisition to explain that the Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth. I hope I have more success. — Ken Livingstone

I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties. He is not the legitimate president. This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown. — Ken Livingstone

I take a much more pragmatic view than many people on the Left about working with Neil Kinnock. Kinnock represents the best vehicle possible for achieving socialism now. — Ken Livingstone

What a squalid and irresponsible little profession it is. Nothing prepares you for how bad Fleet Street really is until it craps on you from a great height. — Ken Livingstone

I think I have gone through my entire public career never telling a lie. I have made mistakes but I never knowingly lied. — Ken Livingstone

I don't just denounce suicide bombers. I denounce those governments which use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy. — Ken Livingstone

My view is rather than just rage at your impotence you find the best way of achieving as much as you can within whatever constraints there are. It's not the world I would have created but you do what you can within it. — Ken Livingstone

What defines someone's music taste is their teens and early 20s. It's that combination of your sexual awakening and the music of the time, it fixes you forever. — Ken Livingstone

I spent the 1960s and 1970s seeking myself - the working-class tradition of self-education. — Ken Livingstone

I grew up in Lambeth, I went to normal schools and I've grown up in a city where people say what they think. — Ken Livingstone

If I was courting the Muslim vote, I wouldn't have put establishing the partnership ceremony at the forefront of my first term, would I? I go all around London advocating lesbian and gay rights. — Ken Livingstone

To avoid manufactured misunderstandings, the policies of Israeli governments are not analogous to Nazism. They do not aim at the systematic extermination of the Palestinian people, in the way Nazism sought the annihilation of the Jews. — Ken Livingstone

The people I really most admire are Robert Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. If you know someone, it is very hard to revere them. — Ken Livingstone

Only some ghastly dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster. — Ken Livingstone

When you see someone trying to manoeuvre it round the school gates, you have to think, 'You are a complete idiot.' — Ken Livingstone

The idea that the GLC should be abolished at a stroke is ill though out, undemocratic and will cost the people of London dear. — Ken Livingstone

I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgement and ability. — Ken Livingstone

Boris [Johnson] and Dave [Cameron] gnawed each other's testicles [during the Tory civil war which blighted the EU referendum]. — Ken Livingstone

I liked it when we had ugly politicians who droned on about issues. — Ken Livingstone

I'm in exactly the same position as everybody else who has a small business. — Ken Livingstone

If transport, housing and Olympic projects do not work, I will crawl away under a stone. — Ken Livingstone

Well, on lots of small things we could have done better, but on all the big things we called it right. You should make less mistakes as you get older, and I became a councillor back in 1971, so if by this stage in politics I'm making lots of big mistakes, then I shouldn't be here. — Ken Livingstone

Today the Israeli government continues seizures of Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into surrounding countries and denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to return. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office. Israel's own Kahan commission found that Sharon shared responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacres. — Ken Livingstone

Ed Miliband doesn't give a damn about what he looks like, how he dresses. He came into politics to change society. — Ken Livingstone

Yes, there are lots of individual exceptions. But no one has ever done a study about voting intention without ascertaining that the biggest determining factor is your income and your wealth. — Ken Livingstone

I employed my wife for three years to sit in the attic and type up my autobiography, 700 pages, organise everywhere I go. I'm paying the normal rate of tax on the money I take out for myself. — Ken Livingstone

[Pigeons are] rats with wings. — Ken Livingstone

I feel a degree of regret that Marshall did not push on and say 'abolish the GLC' because I think it would have been a major saving and would have released massive resources for productive use. — Ken Livingstone

I mean I get loads of money, all from different sources. You give it to your accountant. They manage it. But you pay corporation tax. If you're then taking it out and spending it on yourself, you have to pay more. — Ken Livingstone

We look to the left and to the right And we need help but nobody's in sight Where is the man that we all need Tell him he's to come and rescue me. — Ken Livingstone

When I was leader of the GLC, by the time I had been in control for three years, the difference in pay between the cleaner and the director general was a four-to-one ratio. I find that attractive. — Ken Livingstone

I've got people handling the media. I employ at the moment two people. No-one is paying income tax on the money they use to employ people. — Ken Livingstone

Politics is not a game. Thousands of people's jobs and services depended on what the GLC did, and they expected us to do the best we could. — Ken Livingstone

I don't work hard enough. If I had worked harder I might have been prime minister. — Ken Livingstone

I'd love to write about my growing sexual awareness, but the press would turn it into something squalid. — Ken Livingstone

Life Lessons by Ken Livingstone

1. Ken Livingstone teaches us to have the courage to stand up for what we believe in, even if it means going against the grain.
2. He also shows us the importance of staying true to our values and not compromising on them, no matter the cost.
3. Finally, Ken Livingstone reminds us that it is possible to succeed in spite of adversity, and that hard work and determination can help us to achieve our goals.