Harold Wilson Quotes

Since the war [WWII], the world has been rushing forward at an unprecedented and exhilarating speed … Yet Britain lags behind, lacking the will or the plan which can bring this future within the reach of us all.

Reform is China's second revolution.

… science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilization.

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

We approach closer and closer to socialism.

To build socialism means not only building gigantic factories and flour mills. This is essential but not enough for building socialism. People must grow in mind and heart.

The Socialist movement, the Labour movement, call it which you will, and the Women’s movement, are but different aspects of the same great force which has been, all through the ages, gradually pushing its way upwards, making for the reconstruction and regeneration of Society.

The modernizing elite in the technologically and economically poor nations responded to colonialism by seizing the power of the state and using it to change their societies, hoping to achieve justice at home and economic and cultural parity abroad. The politics of changing traditional social structures and processes by using state power did not always result in social progress and economic development, but it did lead to state supremacy and autocracy. In the more extreme cases autocratic regimes were transformed to either forward-looking or reactionary totalitarianism-of socialist-Marxist, fascist, or religious-fundamentalist types. These systems clearly failed or are failing. But at the time they were adopted, to many they represented hope and a promise of economic change, distributive justice, and a better future.

Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the social democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim.

The 21st century will not be about the battle between capitalism and socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism.

Socialism and the woman movement are two mighty streams which drag along with them great parts of the firm formations which they touch.

We accept the world in order to change it. If you do not accept, then what are you going to change?

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward - or go back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the press' goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.

Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself.

All I want to do is change the world.

The 19th century was the age of Individualism; the 20th and 21st are the ages of Socialism.

Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.

Only through perils and upheavals can Nations be brought to further developments. May the present upheavals lead to a better world.

The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism.

You can't find your way to social reform through the forces that made social reform necessary.

Long live the workers' republic that the Workers Party fights for!

I am against the use of capitalist mechanisms to build socialism.

We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order.

Conservatism, by all means, if there is anything worth conserving, and everything not worth losing. Revolution, if there is nothing worth conserving, and everything worth gaining. These are the class lines upon which the political battle is being fought, and is bound to be fought