If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.
Meaning of the quote
This quote means that if you keep all the papers and documents you throw away in a basket for a very long time, you will end up with a collection of information just like a public library. The idea is that even the things we think are unimportant can be useful and valuable if we save them over many years.
About Tony Benn
Tony Benn was a prominent British Labour Party politician and activist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. He was known for his progressive, democratic socialist views and left-wing politics, and had a significant influence on the party’s direction in later years.
More quotes from Tony Benn
A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.
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The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.
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All war represents a failure of diplomacy.
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We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.
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The Marxist analysis has got nothing to do with what happened in Stalin’s Russia: it’s like blaming Jesus Christ for the Inquisition in Spain.
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It’s the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you’re mad, then dangerous, then there’s a pause and then you can’t find anyone who disagrees with you.
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Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.
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Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.
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Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence.
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If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.
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I am on the right wing of the middle of the road and with a strong radical bias.
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