Vaccines have played a fundamental role in eradicating terrible illnesses such as polio, diphtheria, and hepatitis. However, they bring a risk associated with side-effects that are usually temporary and surmountable... but, in very rare cases, can be as severe as getting the same disease you're trying to be immune to.
Beppe Grillo
We want to destroy everything, not rebuild on the same rubble. We have different ideas. It is like any work. You have to have a clean slate. Then, you have a programme, a new way of thinking. It is a way of thinking. Not a restoration. Parties out. Citizens instead of parties.
Left, right, populism... all are meaningless concepts.
Italy has turned its back on its political class, and a new language of community, identity, and honesty is filling the gap.
I started using my blog to get information about cities I was about to visit, asking followers what the main problems there were. Many mentioned misconduct of politicians and other things I wanted to talk about during my shows. Then, before a show in one city, local politicians called saying they would sue if I said something unpleasant.
We've entrusted our lives to people who know nothing about life.
I'm so proud of being a populist!
This world - the Western world - has failed. We must have a plan B. We're the plan B.
Italy is a tough country to be a comedian in - I can't invent stuff like this. Nearly eighty crooks in Parliament - that's about one crook in twelve. It's worse than Scampia, the most dangerous Naples slum, which is infested by the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia. There, the criminals are only one in fifteen!
It's a very beautiful word, populism. I'm proud to be a populist.
When China was only Communist, everyone received the Dalai Lama, but now that China is hyper-capitalist, he gets blacked out.
In 2005, I had a blog, where people discussed topics such as a sustainable economy, renewable energy, and broadband coverage.
We became the first political movement in Italy, and the media didn't even realize it.
My dream is universal income, with a completely different fiscal system to finance it.
We're a movement of many people who are uniting from the bottom up. We don't have structures, hierarchies, bosses, secretaries... No one gives us orders.
The immigration flows have to be controlled. We have to know who comes into Italy. The problem shouldn't be left to oversized, dysfunctional, nongovernmental groups.
The old division of Left versus Right is dead. In the Internet age, it's about citizens versus parliamentary relics.
I no longer feel the spirit of Europe.
I am still a comic, a fantastic one.
My role is that of the watchdog.
I've always been political.
In Italy, we have some of the best minds in the world, and we have let them all go abroad.
I'm a comedian. You have to understand that my brain doesn't work like a politician's brain.
5SM is an ecumenical movement.
The art of the compromise, which was the art of politics, is no longer valid. Compromise needs to be between citizens, not between Republicans and Democrats.
I threw my TV out years ago.
Artificial intelligence is destroying the traditional world of work.
I am in favour of a different Europe, where each state can adopt its fiscal and monetary system.
The Internet creates transparency, creates a change of mentality, brings people together.
Europe is one thing. The euro is something else.
I want the Eurobond, a 20 per cent devalued euro for southern European countries, protecting our products against those arriving from abroad, and a revision of the 3 per cent deficit budgetary rule.
We are moderate, beautiful people, and we are the only thing left standing between Italy and the real extremists.
For the Americans, laws are barriers to profits; it's a different mentality.
It is so obvious that we are constantly monitored and manipulated both in advertising and in politics.
It is the Internet that changes: the Internet is not just a language; it modifies relationships, the way we look at the world.
We've delegated politics to bankers. The European Central Bank is inside Deutsche Bank, and Deutsche Bank is inside the Bundesbank.
If everyone in China is a socialist, from whom do they steal?
My comedy routines have always been about the health of the nation.
My anger is constructive.
This is what the establishment is scared of: Of joy, the sense of humour, of irony.
When you have a debt that's strangling you, you're not growing.
One of our main objectives is to restore meritocracy within research and academia, where cronyism is also widespread. We also want to give money back to public research that is dying.
Europe was born with Jean Monnet but then was progressively transformed.
The ECB puts out money that is meant to help our banks, but they do not use it to finance our businesses, but they give it to them to buy back their debt, to help French and German banks.
We need to stop the vicious cycle of debt that is strangling us.
From the Americans, I took the meet-up platform, from Howard Dean. He used it to gather money. I use it to gather information, to gather forums, not money. This we copied from the United States, the use of the Internet.
Left and right in Italy, they've always pretended to fight.
Israel is frightening. Its behaviour is irresponsible.
