SOCIALISM QUOTES V

quotations about socialism

Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.

LEN DEIGHTON

Funeral in Berlin


The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes.

OSCAR WILDE

"The Soul of Man Under Socialism", The Essays of Oscar Wilde

Tags: Oscar Wilde


Socialism is in a way the shadow of capitalism. Nothing guarantees the future of socialism so much as capitalism, because socialism is capitalism's self-criticism.

RICHARD WOLFF

interview, Fox Business, August 2017


The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.

SIMONE WEIL

Oppression and Liberty

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A socialist is just someone who is unable to get over his or her astonishment that most people who have lived and died have spent lives of wretched, fruitless, unremitting toil.

TERRY EAGLETON

Ideology: An Introduction


I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly.

TONY BLAIR

maiden speech as MP for Sedgefield, July 6, 1983

Tags: Tony Blair


We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society. The teachings about this society are called socialism.

VLADIMIR LENIN

"To the Rural Poor", Collected Works


I pass the test that says a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head.

WILLIAM CASEY

attributed, Washington Post, May 7, 1987


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

WINSTON CHURCHILL

speech in the House of Commons, "Demobilisation", October 22, 1945

Tags: Winston Churchill


In socialism of the future ... what counts is the whole, the community of the Volk. The individual and his life play only a subsidiary role. He can be sacrificed--he is prepared to sacrifice himself should the whole demand it.

ADOLF HITLER

attributed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant


A little socialism
Don't scare me one bit!
We could do a whole lot worse
Than Europe or Canada.

LEN CHANDLER

"Which Side Are You On? (Civil Rights Version)"


Tell me this, if socialism actually is implemented, what do you expect to get, what is going to happen, are you going to get money, a house, a car, what do you hope for? Or are you simply hoping that the rich will be brought down to the level of the poor?

NO OHNO

"A Reply to: Capitalism has failed the world: Socialism is the viable alternative", News24, August 10, 2017


Socialism annihilates family life, for instance. With the abolition of private property, marriage in its present form must disappear. This is part of the programme. Individualism accepts this and makes it fine. It converts the abolition of legal restraint into a form of freedom that will help the full development of personality, and make the love of man and woman more wonderful, more beautiful, and more ennobling.

OSCAR WILDE

"The Soul of Man Under Socialism", The Essays of Oscar Wilde


Whether considered as a doctrine, or as an historical fact, or as a movement, socialism, if it really remains socialism, cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic church.... Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are expressions implying a contradiction in terms.

PIUS XI

Quadragesimo Anno


Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

Popular Government

Tags: William Howard Taft


In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion.

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN

interview, St. Austin Review, February 2003

Tags: Alexander Solzhenitsyn


In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country.

GEORGE ORWELL

preface to the Ukrainian edition, Animal Farm


It wasn't idealism that made me, from the beginning, want a more secure and rational society. It was an intellectual judgement, to which I still hold. When I was young its name was socialism. We can be deflected by names. But the need was absolute, and is still absolute.

RAYMOND WILLIAMS

Loyalties

Tags: Raymond Williams


Great Socialist statesmen aren't made, they're stillborn.

SAKI

The Unbearable Bassington


I think it's wrong that only one percent of the people should own ninety percent of the country.

SALLY WENTWORTH

Summer Fire