SOCIALISM QUOTES V

quotations about socialism

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


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


The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

JOHN ADAMS

A Defence of the Constitutions of Government

Tags: John Adams


Socialism is a political vision of religious and moral import, whereas capitalism is a self-regulating system, deploying a means-end rationality. The two are in different orders of reality.

CHARLES DAVIS

"The End of Socialism?", After Socialism?: The Future of Radical Christianity


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


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

LEN DEIGHTON

Funeral in Berlin


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 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


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


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


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


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


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

SALLY WENTWORTH

Summer Fire


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


The socialist pretends to have glimpsed paradise on earth. Those who decline the invitation to embrace the vision are not just ungrateful: they are traitors to the cause of human perfection. Dissent is therefore not mere disagreement but treachery. Treachery is properly met not with arguments but (as circumstances permit) the guillotine, the concentration camp, the purge.

ROGER KIMBALL

The New Criterion


It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.

ALDOUS HUXLEY

The Perennial Philosophy

Tags: Aldous Huxley


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

SAKI

The Unbearable Bassington


Here in Jacksonville there's a road called Commonwealth Blvd., and today as I was driving on it, I realized how socialist the name sounds.

JAROD KINTZ

This Book Has No Title


In essence, socialism is a system in which others are forced to pay your bills no matter how irresponsible you may be.

RICHARD W. RAHN

"The Insurance Compulsion", Washington Times, August 7, 2017


If Socialism is what its friends say it is, it should be commended; if it is what its enemies say it is, it should be condemned.

FRANKLIN VERZELIUS NEWTON PAINTER

attributed, Why I Am Opposed to Socialism