Nye 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Poor fellow, he suffers from files.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is my truth, tell me yours.

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

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

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

Politics is a blood sport.

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

No attempt 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.

Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable.

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