Socialism Quotes
The names at the top make a strange group: Joseph Goebbels, Mussolini, Thatcher, Orwell and George Fitzhugh. Some come from the Nazi movement, which called itself socialist, and some from opponents. For reading, go to the sourced lines instead. H. L. Mencken, in A Little Book in C Major (1916), defines socialism as the theory that one man’s desire for what he hasn’t got is more pleasing to a just God than another’s desire to keep what he has. Solzhenitsyn, at Harvard in 1978, was blunter about it.
Three entries are flagged. “Democracy is the road to socialism,” credited to Karl Marx, is disputed. A line about no longer knowing what socialism is, credited to Deng Xiaoping, is marked misattributed, and the notes say it concerned the French Revolution and was actually said by Zhou Enlai. A claim that National Socialism is based on Marx is credited to Hitler and also marked misattributed.
There was nothing remotely like socialism in the Soviet Union...
Socialists don't like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose Socialism.
There's a cushy socialism for the rich and this kind of brutal, merciless capitalism for the poor.
Socialism may be all right when men are fit to be socialists.
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.
I don't like the spirit of socialism – I think freedom is the basis of everything.
Socialism and SF are the two most fundamental influences in my life.
Socialism almost never has been judged as a goal in value by the experience of communism in power.
We shall banish want. We shall banish fear. The essence of National Socialism is human welfare.