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Wealth in modern societies is distributed according to opportunity; and while opportunity depends partly upon talent and energy, it depends still more upon birth, social position, access to education and inherited wealth; in a word, upon property.

— R. H. Tawney The Acquisitive Society (1920)

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Socialism

More quotes by R. H. Tawney

The foundation of democracy is the sense of spiritual independence which nerves the individual to stand alone against the powers of this world.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows.

It is probable that democracy owes more to Nonconformity than to any other single movement.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

A right should not be absolute for the same reason that a power should not be absolute.

The Acquisitive Society (1920)

The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)

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Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Winston Churchill

In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.

George Orwell

Attribution

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