Aneurin Bevan Quotes

I know that the right kind of political leader for the Labour Party is a desiccated calculating machine.

We should not be pushing out figured when the facts are in the opposite direction.

Trade unions are islands of anarchy in a sea of chaos.

He has the lucidity which is the by-product of a fundamentally sterile mind.

Why should I question the monkey when I can question the organ grinder.

There can be no immaculate conception of socialism.

The hero's need of the people outlasts their need of him.

Listening to a speech by [Neville] Chamberlain is like paying a visit to Woolworth's, everything in its place and nothing above sixpence.

You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm.

A Society in which the people's wants do not exceed their possessions is not a Socialist society.

Virtue is its own punishment.

There are two ways of getting into the Cabinet - you can crawl in or kick your way in.

Stand not too near the rich man lest he destroy thee - and not too far away lest he forget thee.

In Germany democracy died by the headman's axe. In Britain it can be by pernicious anaemia.

It is an axiom, enforced by all the experience of the ages, that they who rule industrially will rule politically.

The language of priorities is the religion of socialism.

Discontent arises from a knowledge of the possible, as contrasted with the actual.

Reactionary: a man walking backwards with his face to the future.

I have never regarded politics as the arena of morals. It is the arena of interest.

You don't have to gaze into a crystal ball when you can read an open book.

I welcome this opportunity of pricking the bloated bladder of lies with the poniard of truth

I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one.

Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born.

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

Politics is a blood sport.

There is only one hope for mankind and that is democratic Socialism.

This is my truth, tell me yours.

Damn it all you can't have the crown of thorns and the thirty pieces of silver.

The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.

If freedom is to be saved and enlarged, poverty must be ended. There is no other solution.

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.

The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away.

I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.

The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it