Harold Laski Quotes

A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property.

Those who know the normal life of the poor... will realize well enough that without economic security, liberty is not worth having.

Without equality, I say, there cannot be liberty.

Civilization means, above all, an unwillingness to inflict unnecessary pain ... those of us who heedlessly accept the commands of authority cannot yet claim to be civilized men.

Every State is known by the rights it maintains.

A healthy loyalty is not passive and complacent, but active and critical.

No citizen enjoys genuine freedom of religious conviction until the state is indifferent to every form of religious outlook from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.

The only real security for social well-being is the free exercise of men's minds.

If it weren't for the law, I would steal books; if it weren't for my purse, I would buy them.

The number of substitutes for fine and clean thinking the world provides positively gnaws at one's vitals.

The test, surely, of a creed is not the ability of those who accept it to announce their faith; its test is its ability to change their behavior in the ordinary round of daily life. Judged by that test, I know no religion that has a moral claim upon the allegiance of men.

Historically, means cannot be separated from ends.

If there is one thing fundamental to the life of the spirit it is the absence of force.

A second-class mind dealing with third-class material is hardly a necessity of life.

Aside from theology and sex there is really nothing to talk about.

It would be madness to let the purposes or the methods of private enterprise set the habits of the age of atomic energy.