Quotes from Aneurin Bevan

This is my truth, tell me yours.

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

Politics is a blood sport.

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

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

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

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

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

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.

Poor fellow, he suffers from files.

Virtue is its own punishment.

You're not an M.P., you're a gastronomic pimp.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

This is my truth, tell me yours.

I welcome this opportunity of pricking the bloated bladder of lies with the poniard of truth

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

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