Aneurin Bevan Quotes & Sayings

The Prime Minister wins debate after debate and loses battle after battle. The country is beginning to say that he fights debates like a war and the war like a debate. — Aneurin Bevan

He seems determined to make a trumpet sound like a tin whistle. — Aneurin Bevan

The Tories, every election, must have a bogy man. If you haven't got a programme, a bogy man will do. — Aneurin Bevan

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

I know that the right kind of leader for the Labour Party is a desiccated calculating machine who must not in any way permit himself to be swayed by indignation. If he sees suffering, privation or injustice he must not allow it to move him, for that would be evidence of the lack of proper education or of absence of self-control. He must speak in calm and objective accents and talk about a dying child in the same way as he would about the pieces inside an internal combustion engine. — Aneurin Bevan

It is not possible to create peace in the Middle East by jeopardizing the peace of the world. — Aneurin Bevan

Why should I question the monkey when I can question the organ grinder. — Aneurin Bevan

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

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

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

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

No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. — Aneurin Bevan

This is my truth, tell me yours. — Aneurin Bevan

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

Politics is a blood sport. — Aneurin Bevan

The language of priorities is the religion of socialism. — Aneurin Bevan

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

Virtue is its own punishment. — Aneurin Bevan

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. — Aneurin Bevan

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

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. — Aneurin Bevan

What should be the glory of the profession is that a doctor should be able to meet his patients with no financial anxiety. — Aneurin Bevan

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

You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm. — Aneurin Bevan

Not even the apparently enlightened principle of the 'greatest good for the greatest number' can excuse indifference to individual suffering. There is no test for progress other than its impact on the individual. — Aneurin Bevan

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. — Aneurin Bevan

[Winston Churchill] never spares himself in conversation. He gives himself so generously that hardly anyone else is permitted to give anything in his presence. — Aneurin Bevan

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

The Tories always hold the view that the state is an apparatus for the protection of the swag of the property owners ... Christ drove the money changers out of the temple, but you inscribe their title deed on the altar cloth. — Aneurin Bevan

I read the newspaper avidly.
It is my one form of continuous fiction. — Aneurin Bevan

Soon, if we are not prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets — Aneurin Bevan

Advertising is 'an evil service'. — Aneurin Bevan

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

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

We could manage to survive without money changers and stockbrokers. We should find it harder to do without miners, steel workers and those who cultivate the land — Aneurin Bevan

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over! — Aneurin Bevan

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

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

There is only one hope for mankind - and that is democratic socialism. There is only one party in Great Britain which can do it - and that is the Labour Party. — Aneurin Bevan

There can be no immaculate conception of socialism. — Aneurin Bevan

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

No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means. — Aneurin Bevan

That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through. But, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying now. Do not listen to the seductions of Lord Woolton. He is a very good salesman. If you are selling shoddy stuff you have to be a good salesman. But I warn you they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were. — Aneurin Bevan

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus. — Aneurin Bevan

He [Winston Churchill] is a man suffering from petrified adolescence. — Aneurin Bevan

This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time. — Aneurin Bevan

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

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

Poor fellow, he suffers from files. — Aneurin Bevan

Trade unions are islands of anarchy in a sea of chaos. — Aneurin Bevan

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

He brings to the fierce struggle of politics the tepid enthusiasm of a lazy summer afternoon at a cricket match. — Aneurin Bevan

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

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