Skip to content

Now that we are engaged once more in policy-making it is essential that we should keep clear before us that one of the central principles of Socialism is the substitution of public for private ownership. There is no way round this.

— Aneurin Bevan

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: ‘The Fatuity of Coalition’, Tribune (13 June 1952), p. 2, quoted in Notes on Current Politics (1952), p. 31 and W. H. Greenleaf, The British Political Tradition, Volume Two: The Ideological Heritage (1983), p. 471
Source quality: Secondhand citation Quoted from another book or article rather than from the original.

More by Aneurin Bevan

Man must first live before he can live abundantly.

In Place of Fear (1952)

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

In Place of Fear (1952)

A free people will always refuse to put up with preventable poverty.

In Place of Fear (1952)

Why read the crystal when he can read the book?

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

The spectacle therefore afforded us by the United States is one of technical brilliance and social blindness.

In Place of Fear (1952)

We should try to avoid new causes of tension, such as the rearming of Western Germany.

In Place of Fear (1952)

Without free expression of opinion and the means to ensure it a democracy dies.

In Place of Fear (1952)

All Aneurin Bevan quotes →

More quotes by Aneurin Bevan

A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.

In Place of Fear (1952)

There is only one hope for mankind — and that is democratic Socialism.

No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied aid because of lack of means.

Soon, if we are not more prudent, millions of people will be watching each other starve to death through expensive television sets.

In Place of Fear (1952)

Not even the apparently enlightened principle of the ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ can excuse indifference to individual suffering. There is no test for progress other than its impact on the individual.

In Place of Fear (1952)

All Aneurin Bevan quotes →

Attribution

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