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Ramsay MacDonald Quotes
1866–1937 Scotland
Ramsay MacDonald (12 October 1866 – 9 November 1937) was a British statesman who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leading a Labour Government in 1924, a Labour Government from 1929 to 1931, and a National Government from 1931 to 1935.
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26 quotes
Felt the virtues of the Victorian times so condemned by Mr Strachey. The simple honesties can always be made a butt by the impish unrealiabilites.
In youth one believes in democracy, later on, one has to accept it.
If we yield now to the TUC we shall never be able to call our bodies or souls or intelligences our own.
Mr. Lloyd George will not resign on anything anti-German. He is anti-German, and the trust which the reasonable Peace people place in him is altogether misplaced.
State Charity is not socialism but may become the greatest menace the Socialist Movement [has been] threatened with.
Letter (1909)
I can assure you that, whatever your political colour may be, in the Old Country political parties, even in the heat of battle, never obscure national or Imperial interests.
The desolation of loneliness is terrible. Was I wise? Perhaps not, but it seemed as though anything else was impossible.
Of the Budget as a whole, I say "Bravo". I am going to support it through thick and thin.
I am going to stand for no monkeying.
Yes, to-morrow every Duchess in London will be wanting to kiss me!
Mr. Lloyd George's campaign in its gross demagogic vulgarity has also increased both the number and the value of the reasons why we should have nothing whatever to do with his Party.
Greater liberty will be given to localities to regulate their own affairs, to acquire property for that purpose, to promulgate byelaws and more particularly to organise themselves as markets after the manner of co-operative societies.
Socialism and Government (1909)
The day is coming when we may have to give up orthodox free trade as we inherited it from our fathers.
When Sir Edward Grey failed to secure peace between Germany and Russia, he worked deliberately to involve us in the war, using Belgium as his chief excuse.
Lower forms merge into higher forms, one species with another, the vegetable into the animal kingdom; in human history one epoch slides into another...Socialism, the stage which follows Liberalism, retains everything of value in Liberalism by virtue of its being the hereditary heir of Liberalism.
Socialism and Society (1905)
The economic truths of Socialism, its industrialism, and its sociology, must remain the vainest of vain dreamings unless we preserve among the people the political frame of mind which can appreciate democratic liberty and worth. When "a man's a man for a' that" is recited without making the blood tingle, the man has ceased to be.
Socialism and Government (1909)
What the Liberals have done to the Labour Party's programme is to come along like a gipsy, steal our child, get it in gaudy attire, and then produce it on platforms to perform at the General Election.
We want no injustice done to other people. I do not appeal to you merely as a class, but I do appeal to you workers to form yourselves into an organisation which will use political power in order to protect our human conditions and give you fair play in life.
The League takes upon itself as its first task the creating once again of the European system, and that European system never will exist until our late enemies have ceased to be our enemies and have come in to take their cooperative part in that system.
The only reason from beginning to end is that our foreign office is anti-German and that the Admiralty was anxious to seize any opportunity for using the Navy in battle practice... Never did we arm our people and ask them to give us their lives for less good cause than this.
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