Quotes by Bevan, Aneurin

"The worst thing I can say about democracy is that it has tolerated the Right Honorable Gentleman for four and a half years."

Bevan, Aneurin on democracy   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on fascism   

"Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus."

Bevan, Aneurin on freedom
3 fans of this quote   

"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."

Bevan, Aneurin on hospitals   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on indecision
3 fans of this quote   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on industry   

"I am not going to spend any time whatsoever in attacking the Foreign Secretary. If we complain about the tune, there is no reason to attack the monkey when the organ grinder is present."

Bevan, Aneurin on insults   

"He has the lucidity which is the by-product of a fundamentally sterile mind. He does not have to struggle... with the crowded pulsations of a fecund imagination. On the contrary he is almost devoid of imagination."

Bevan, Aneurin on mind   

"He seems determined to make a trumpet sound like a tin whistle."

Bevan, Aneurin on modesty   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on morality   

"Politics is a blood sport."

Bevan, Aneurin on politics   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on politics   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on power
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"You're not an M.P., you're a gastronomic pimp."

Bevan, Aneurin on public   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on action   

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

Bevan, Aneurin on books - reading
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"Poor fellow, he suffers from files."

Bevan, Aneurin on bureaucracy   

"Now, the vicissitudes that afflict the individual have their source in society. It is this situation that has given currency to the phrase social forces. Personal relations have given way to impersonal ones. The Great Society has arrived and the task of our generation is to bring it under control. The study of how it is to be done is the function of politics. "

Bevan, Aneurin on uncategorised