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The ultimate aim of politics is not politics, but the activities which can be practised within the political framework of the State.

— Stephen Spender Life and the Poet (1942)

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More quotes by Stephen Spender

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

After the first powerful plain manifesto
The black statement of pistons, without more fuss
But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station.

History is theirs whose language is the sun.

Ruins and Visions (1942)

At dawn she lay with her profile at that angle
Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel.

I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.

On turning 70 in Journals 1939-83 (1986)

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Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Albert Einstein

Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Mao Zedong

Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state.

Benito Mussolini

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

Theodor Adorno The Authoritarian Personality (1950)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Stephen Spender (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.