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

Jack had been the love of her life and he was gone. It seemed now that there had never been bad times, though she knew that wasn't true. — Sara Sheridan

Mirabelle? Mirabelle Bevan? Well, I'll be blowed!"
Mirabelle started, almost spilling her drink. It took her a moment to realize who the handsome man was, now his hair was greying at the edges and he was out of uniform. Puffing laconically on a cigarette, martini in hand, he wore a lounge suit and an understated silk tie with a discreet regimental insignia woven into the fabric.
"Eddie," she smiled. "What are you doing here? — Sara Sheridan

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

Oh my heavens!" said Julian's disembodied voice. "I seem to have pulled my big meaty hamstring! However will I deliver this basket of raw human flesh to the orphanage? — Robert Bevan

I am two of the most powerful words; for what you put after them shapes your reality. — Bevan Lee

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

Politics is a blood sport. — Aneurin Bevan

Without false modetsy, I don't think I have a fraction of the talent of either Bevan of Foot. — Neil Kinnock

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

So what if she wasn't a pushover? So what if she had some mettle and didn't wear her heart on her sleeve? She had done everything she had done for the best. For king and country. — Sara Sheridan

She tried to focus on the element of riddle or at least puzzle contained in the letter and ignore the sense of doom that was sweeping through her like clouds rolling to the shore over open water. — Sara Sheridan

At lunch, Michael began to reminisce about his first election in Wales, when he was selected to occupy Nye Bevan's seat. A brief kerfuffle had resulted when his name did not appear on the short list of Labour Party candidates for the seat. Evidently some locals preferred not to take on Michael in spite of his association with Nye. Jennie Lee, along with others, intervened and Michael not only made the list but also was selected and won his seat in the general election. He had a wonderful photograph of himself and Jill, with their dog Vanessa between them. The happy looking dog in the centre looked as if she had won the election, I told Michael. "It did, too," he said. — Carl Rollyson

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

Virtue is its own punishment. — Aneurin Bevan

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

Lord Marshmoreton: I wish I could get you see my point of view.
George Bevan: I do see your point of view. But dimly. You see, my own takes up such a lot of the foreground — P.G. Wodehouse

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

In the middle section of the book Mirabelle breaks into not one, but two houses near Belgravia Books. I had fun scoping these out - checking which windows looked least secure and figuring out how to scale the mews houses to the rear to get her inside. A man came out at one point, 'What are you doing?' he questioned me. 'The thing is, I'm writing a book,' I started with a smile. He waved me off, his hand as wide as a tennis racket. 'Everyone is writing a book, my dear,' he said. Between you and I, it's his house that MIrabelle ends up breaking into. — Sara Sheridan

Advertising is 'an evil service'. — Aneurin Bevan

This investigation felt difficult, like driving in fog. — Sara Sheridan

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

Can I fetch you something, madam? A cup of tea?'
In the old days she'd have been 'miss' and he'd have offered her a cocktail. — Sara Sheridan

[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

Mirabelle and Vesta have plenty in common because they are facing descrimination in different ways, but they're also a nice contrast. — Sara Sheridan

Jordana is in the umpire's highchair.
I walk under the rugby posts and on to the tennis courts, stopping a few metres in front of her, in the service box.
Her legs are crossed.
I wait for her to speak.
'I have two special skills,' she says.
She pulls a sheaf of papers from under her bum. I recognize the font and the text boxes. It's my pamphlet.
'Blackmail,' she says.
She holds up her Zippo in the other hand. I can tell that she has been practising this.
'And pyromania.'
I am impressed that Jordana knows this word.
'Right,' I say.
'I'm going to blackmail you, Ol.'
I feel powerless. She is in a throne.
'Okay,' I say. — Joe Dunthorne

Oh come on man," said Dave. "That's seriously not cool. You're supposed to ride those, not use them as meat shields." — Robert 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

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

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

Star"

Tony went to fight in Belfast
Rudi stayed at home to starve
I could make it all worthwhile
as a rock & roll star
Bevan tried to change the nation
Sonny wants to turn the world, well he can tell you that
he tried
I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star

[CHORUS (x2)]
So inviting - so enticing to play the part
I could play the wild mutation
as a rock & roll star
I could do with the money
I'm so wiped out with things as they are
I'd send my photograph to my honey - and I'd c'mon like
a regular superstar

I could fall asleep at night
as a rock & roll star
I could fall in love all right
as a rock & roll star — David Bowie

If there's one shade a woman of colour can't wear it's got to be the one everyone expects, hasn't it? — Sara Sheridan

When life gives you a lemon, it's time for a Cowgirl's Prayer." This was one of her favorite alcoholic concoctions of tequila, lime juice and lemonade. — Brenda Bevan Remmes

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

Knowing what you want to do and then what you have to do to make it happen is one big difference between adult creativity and child's play. — Rob 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

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

Mirabelle sat down, dropping into the cushions like a ball being caught in a large leather glove. — Sara Sheridan

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

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

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

Why, that means you're just a ... busybody. You could be anyone. You could be a journalist.' — Sara Sheridan

I like you in green,' he said. 'You look as if you're a very beautiful imp.' — Sara Sheridan

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

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

Whereas Mirabelle is tall, thin and sad, Vesta is physically and emotionally her opposite. — Sara Sheridan

There can be no immaculate conception of socialism. — 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

He referred to Aneurin Bevan as 'Urinal' Bevan. As for the working classes, they couldn't write their own names in shit on a lavatory wall. I said I thought they could. — Tony Benn

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

We can call the attempt to refute theism by displaying the continuity of belief in God with primitive delusions the method of Anthropological intimidation. — Edwyn Bevan

For we all make mistakes from time to time, myself included. What's important is that we learn from those mistakes. I remember being told by the great Derek Bevan, a good friend and my refereeing coach, that there is nothing wrong with making a mistake; it's when you make the same mistake again that you have a problem. — Nigel Owens

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

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

The world is changing and you're only just becoming accustomed to it. You're changing, I suppose. You've changed since I've known you.'
'How?'
'You've come more alive. — Sara Sheridan

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

Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and then you get the right ingredients on top, you stand a shot ... but if you get those foundations wrong, then you absolutely don't stand a shot. It's very rare-almost never-that a good film gets made from a bad screenplay. — Tim Bevan

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

Poor fellow, he suffers from files. — Aneurin Bevan

If you put Mirabelle into some of the situations she gets into, there is only one way Mirabelle can behave. — Sara Sheridan

While his brain lay slowly dying, Bevan felt his body come back to life. — Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

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

There's a certain magic about writing even when the characters refuse to act the way I want them to. — Gloria Bevan

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

When she first moved to Brighton, the flat on the Lawns had felt luxurious and it had seemed as if she was settling down, sleeping in the same bed every night, the darkness uninterrupted by any hint of emergency. It had felt as if all her difficulties were over. — Sara Sheridan

A chap wouldn't hole up in Occupied France just to get away from his wife, Vesta. — Sara Sheridan

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

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

Didn't young people care what the generation before them had achieved? And if not, why had everyone gone through those grim difficult wartime years? — Sara Sheridan

Buildings are not political but are politicized by why and how they are built, regarded and destroyed. — Robert Bevan

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

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

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

He (Aneurin Bevan) enjoys prophesying the imminent fall of the capitalist system, and is prepared to play a part, any part, in its burial, except that of mute. — Harold Macmillan

A chap's impending death has a way of focusing the mind. — Sara Sheridan

She curled sideways into the milky light of the bedside lamp and began to read. — Sara Sheridan

Any additional spotlight you can put onto an opening of a film is a great thing to get. — Tim Bevan