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Clement Attlee Quotes
1883–1967 England
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee KG OM CH FRS PC (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951. Coming from an upper middle class background, Attlee was converted to socialism through working in the East End of London and became MP for Limehouse in 1922 (later Walthamstow West from 1950–55).
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You will be judged by what you succeed at gentlemen, not by what you attempt.
To ensure peace we needed stronger armed forces as a deterrent to aggression.
The idea that every nation ought to have an atomic bomb, like every woman of fashion ought to have a mink coat, is deplorable.
Progress is not towards, but away from the herd. It is no part of the Socialist idea that there should be in every human activity an orthodox pattern to which all must conform.
When we are returned to power we want to put in the statute book an act which will make our people citizens of the world before they are citizens of this country.
The British people now realise the danger with which they are faced, and know that in the event of a German victory everything they have built up will be destroyed. The Germans kill not only men, but ideas. Our people are resolved as never before in their history.
Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great.
The Observer (1956)
We have absolutely abandoned any idea of nationalist loyalty. We are deliberately putting a world order before our loyalty to our own country.
Socialism is not the invention of an individual. It is essentially the outcome of economic and social conditions. The evils that Capitalism brings differ in intensity in different countries, but, the root cause of the trouble once discerned, the remedy is seen to be the same by thoughtful men and women. The cause is the private ownership of the means of life; the remedy is public ownership.
I joined the socialist movement because I did not like the kind of society we had and wanted something better.
Not Churchill. Sixty-five, old for a Churchill.
In Cabinet the important thing is to stop people from talking. Some people are loquacious, some are eloquent. I always used to point out that rhetoric is wasted on a Cabinet of hard-boiled politicians.
The Old School Tie can still be seen on the Government benches.
We on this side are not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody.
… the Peace Treaties must be scrapped … I stand for no more war and no more secret diplomacy.
There were few who thought him a starter,
Socialists do not propose to substitute the domination of society by one privileged class for that of another. They seek to abolish class distinctions altogether. The abolition of classes is fundamental to the Socialist conception of society.
King George VI was always remarkably well informed, and I made a point of reading the latest telegrams before my weekly audience with him. A conscientious, constitutional monarch is a strong element of stability and continuity in our Constitution.
Socialism was the only means of freeing the world from war and poverty. Socialism stood as a third alternative to a barbaric Communism and capitalism in a state of decay. Communism was a falsification of the principles of Socialism.
There is a denial of the value of the individual. Christianity affirms the value of each individual soul. Nazism denies it. The individual is sacrificed to the idol of the German Leader, German State or the German race. The ordinary citizen is allowed to hear and think only as the rulers decree.
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