Laski Quotes & Sayings

If there is one thing fundamental to the life of the spirit it is the absence of force. — Harold Laski

You see what the word of Michael Laski is: a minor but perilous triumph of being over nothingness. — Joan Didion

Why, the only reason for religion is that it can make you, keep you safe. If religion weren't true, then there would be no salvation, no comfort for being alive and alone, there would be nothing but living and dying - no, that cannot be so ... of course religion is true and will save me ... — Marghanita Laski

What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me. — Marghanita Laski

The wave came again and carried them out onto the sea of pain, where he wondered again why life ever came into the world...The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself, and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body...He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse...Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward. — William Kotzwinkle

Civilization means, above all, an unwillingness to inflict unnecessary pain ... those of us who heedlessly accept the commands of authority cannot yet claim to be civilized men. — Harold Laski

No citizen enjoys genuine freedom of religious conviction until the state is indifferent to every form of religious outlook from Atheism to Zoroastrianism. — Harold Laski

It is impossible to make peace with the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the permanent enemies of all that is decent in human spirit. — Harold J. Laski

Without equality, I say, there cannot be liberty. — Harold Laski

If it weren't for the law, I would steal books; if it weren't for my purse, I would buy them. — Harold Laski

Those who know the normal life of the poor ... will realize well enough that without economic security, liberty is not worth having. — Harold Laski

A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property. — Harold Laski

Every State is known by the rights it maintains. — Harold Laski

Professor Harold Laski declared that the attainment of power by the British Labour Party in the normal parliamentary fashion must result in a radical transformation of parliamentary government. A socialist administration needs 'guarantees' that its work of transformation would not be 'disrupted' by repeal in event of its defeat at the polls. Therefore the suspension of the Constitution is 'inevitable'. — Ludwig Von Mises

One can never be sure of the end, only of the means, and so we must be sure that the means are good. — Marghanita Laski

Historically, means cannot be separated from ends ... — Harold Laski

It would be madness to let the purposes or the methods of private enterprise set the habits of the age of atomic energy. — Harold Laski

A second-class mind dealing with third-class material is hardly a necessity of life. — Harold Laski

The only good thing we can do, the only goodness we can be sure of, is our own goodness as individuals and the good that we can individually do. As groups we often do evil that good may come and very often the good does not come and all that is left is the evil we have pointlessly done. — Marghanita Laski

A healthy loyalty is not passive and complacent, but active and critical. — Harold Laski

The test, surely, of a creed is not the ability of those who accept it to announce their faith; its test is its ability to change their behavior in the ordinary round of daily life. Judged by that test, I know no religion that has a moral claim upon the allegiance of men. — Harold Laski

The only real security for social well-being is the free exercise of men's minds. — Harold Laski

There's no reason why you can't have another child." Laski listened numbly. He thinks that's what has been at stake, our wish for a child, any child, not this particular child who swung down the road between us. They can't know how special he was. They point to the future. But we're here, forever, now. The nurse slipped Diane onto the wheeled table. "I have a needle for you," said the nurse. "No," said Diane, still refusing any anesthetic. "It's to dry up your milk," said the nurse. — William Kotzwinkle

The number of substitutes for fine and clean thinking the world provides positively gnaws at one's vitals. — Harold Laski

Aside from theology and sex there is really nothing to talk about. — Harold Laski

As it happens I am comfortable with the Michael Laskis of this world, with those who live outside rather than in, those in whom the sense of dread is so acute that they turn to extreme and doomed commitments; I know something about dread myself, and appreciate the elaborate systems with which some people manage to fill the void, appreciate all the opiates of the people, whether they are as accessible as alcohol and heroin and promiscuity or as hard to come by as faith in God or History.

But of course I did not mention dread to Michael Laski, whose particular opiate is History. I did suggest "depression," did venture that it might have been "depressing" for him to see only a dozen or so faces at his last May Day demonstration, but he told me that depression was an impediment to the revolutionary process, a disease afflicting only those who do not have ideology to sustain them. — Joan Didion