செல்வந்தர்கள், ஏழைகளின் பிரதிநிதியாக இருக்கும் பணியை சிறப்பாக செய்வதில்லை.
பணத்தை வைத்திருக்கின்ற, பணத்தை விரும்புகின்ற, பணத்தின் பின்னால் பைத்தியமாக அலைகின்றவர்களை நான் எதிர்க்கவில்லை. ஆனால் அவர்களை அரசியலில் இருந்து தூரமாக்கவேண்டும். அவர்கள் வர்த்தகத்திலும் பணத்தை அதிகரிப்பதிலும் தமது முழுக்கவனத்தையும் ஈடுபடுத்த வேண்டும். அரசியல் என்பது அனைவரையும் மகிழ்ச்சியாக வைத்திருக்க முயற்சிப்பதாகும். அது அவர்களுக்கு சரிப்பட்டு வராது.
அவர்கள் நன்னோக்குடன் பொதுமக்களுக்காக எடுக்கும் முடிவுகள்கூட அவர்களது கண்ணோட்டத்திலேயே இருக்கும். அவர்களது கண்ணோட்டம் என்பது பணம் மட்டுமே.
2010 இலிருந்து 2015 வரை உருகுவே நாட்டின் ஜனாதிபதியாக இருந்த Jose Mujica 2014 இல் வழங்கிய நேர்காணல் ஒன்றிலிருந்து.
Laundry is strung outside the house. The water comes from a well in a yard, overgrown with weeds. Only two police officers and Manuela, a three-legged dog, keep watch outside.
This is the residence of the president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, whose lifestyle clearly differs sharply from that of most other world leaders.
President Mujica has shunned the luxurious house that the Uruguayan state provides for its leaders and opted to stay at his wife's farmhouse, off a dirt road outside the capital, Montevideo.
The president and his wife work the land themselves, growing flowers.
This austere lifestyle - and the fact that Mujica donates about 90% of his monthly salary, equivalent to $12,000 (£7,500), to charity - has led him to be labelled the poorest president in the world.
His charitable donations - which benefit poor people and small entrepreneurs - mean his salary is roughly in line with the average Uruguayan income of $775 (£485) a month.
In 2010, his annual personal wealth declaration - mandatory for officials in Uruguay - was $1,800 (£1,100), the value of his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle.
This year, he added half of his wife's assets - land, tractors and a house - reaching $215,000 (£135,000).
That's still only about two-thirds of Vice-President Danilo Astori's declared wealth, and a third of the figure declared by Mujica's predecessor as president, Tabare Vasquez.
Elected in 2009, Mujica spent the 1960s and 1970s as part of the Uruguayan guerrilla Tupamaros, a leftist armed group inspired by the Cuban revolution.
He was shot six times and spent 14 years in jail. Most of his detention was spent in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.
Those years in jail, Mujica says, helped shape his outlook on life.
"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," he says.
"This is a matter of freedom. 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," he says.
"I may appear to be an eccentric old man... But this is a free choice."
The Uruguayan leader made a similar point when he addressed the Rio+20 summit in June this year: "We've been talking all afternoon about sustainable development. To get the masses out of poverty.
"But what are we thinking? Do we want the model of development and consumption of the rich countries? I ask you now: what would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of cars per household than Germans? How much oxygen would we have left?
"Does this planet have enough resources so seven or eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption that is harming our planet."
Mujica accuses most world leaders of having a "blind obsession to achieve growth with consumption, as if the contrary would mean the end of the world".
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