“Socialism knows that revolutionary upheavals and transformations proceed from the rock bed of material needs. With a full appreciation of and veneration for moral impulses that are balanced with scientific knowledge, it eschews, looks with just suspicion upon and gives a wide berth to balloon morality, or be it those malarial fevers that reformers love to dignify with the name of "moral feelings"”

—  Daniel De Leon

Materialism-Morality
Reform or Revolution (1896)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Socialism knows that revolutionary upheavals and transformations proceed from the rock bed of material needs. With a fu…" by Daniel De Leon?
Daniel De Leon photo
Daniel De Leon7
American newspaper editor 1852–1914

Related quotes

“Unfortunately, pragmatism is not always good politics. The greatest asset of mid-20th century social democracy—its willingness to compromise its own core beliefs in the name of balance, tolerance, fairness and freedom—now looks more like weakness: a loss of nerve in the face of changed circumstances. We find it hard to look past those compromises to recall the qualities that informed progressive thought in the first place: what the early 20th century syndicalist Edouard Berth termed “a revolt of the spirit against... a world in which man was threatened by a monstrous moral and metaphysical materialism.””

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Ill Fares the Land (2010), Ch. 4 : Goodbye to All That?

Walter Rauschenbusch photo

“Jesus was not a social reformer of the modern type… he approached these facts purely from the moral, and not from the economic or historical point of view.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.2 The Social Aims of Jesus, p. 47
Context: Men are seizing on Jesus as the exponent of their own social convictions. They all claim him.... But in truth Jesus was not a social reformer of the modern type... he approached these facts purely from the moral, and not from the economic or historical point of view.

“The greatest gift is the passion for reading.
It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites,
it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind.
It is a moral illumination.”

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) Novelist, short story writer, literary critic

“Wherever people prefer to call upon "offenses against moral sentience", upon "moral terms" rather than adhere to one's rationally derived scientific criminological approach”

Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg (1929) German ethnologe, sociologe, writer

Tabu Homosexualität - Die Geschichte eines Vorurteils (1978; reprinted in 1981 as Homosexualität - Die Geschichte eines Vorurteils), p. 321.
Tabu Homosexualität (1978)
Context: Wherever people prefer to call upon "offenses against moral sentience", upon "moral terms" rather than adhere to one's rationally derived scientific criminological approach [dividing irrational, ethnocentric "moral offenses" from actual crimes], one is fully justified in speaking of prejudice's total victory over reason.

“Real morality is possible when the sanctions for morality are also tangible and real. Therefore, atheism shifts the basis of morality from faith in god to obligations of social living. Moral conduct is not a passport to heaven; it is social necessity.”

Goparaju Ramachandra Rao (1902–1975) Indian activist

Atheism: Questions and Answers

H. H. Asquith photo

“I have realised from the first that if it could not be proved that social reform (not Socialism) can be financed on a Free Trade line, a return to Protection is a moral certainty.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to John Strachey (9 May 1908), quoted in H. C. G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists: The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Élite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 257
Prime Minister

George D. Herron photo

“The hope of the social reformer is to open wide the gates of opportunity, so that every creature, from the least to the greatest, may make his life a moral adventure and a joy, and exhaust his possibilities in the thing he can best do.”

George D. Herron (1862–1925) American clergyman, writer and activist

Source: Between Caesar and Jesus (1899), p. 15

Albert Einstein photo

“An important advance in the life of a people is the transformation of the religion of fear into the moral religion. But one must avoid the prejudice that regards the religions of primitive peoples as pure fear religions and those of the civilized races as pure moral religions. All are mixed forms, though the moral element predominates in the higher levels of social life.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Wording in Ideas and Opinions: The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
1930s, Religion and Science (1930)
Context: It is easy to follow in the sacred writings of the Jewish people the development of the religion of fear into the moral religion, which is carried further in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially those of the Orient, are principally moral religions. An important advance in the life of a people is the transformation of the religion of fear into the moral religion. But one must avoid the prejudice that regards the religions of primitive peoples as pure fear religions and those of the civilized races as pure moral religions. All are mixed forms, though the moral element predominates in the higher levels of social life.

Hunter S. Thompson photo

“One of them is knowing the difference between Morality and Wisdom. Morality is temporary, Wisdom is permanent… Ho ho. Take that one to bed with you tonight.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

“Moral rules and social norms no longer flow from the wise or the accomplished or from custom. The new moral rules and norms and taboos are frantic mass responses to claims of discrimination, oppression, offense, hurt feelings- even a failure to affirm some obvious delusion or pathosis… The Empire scrambles to accommodate victims, and that gives those who claim to be victims - often the most fragile, helpless, dysgenic and emotionally needy people - ultimate moral authority.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Pg 41
A More Complete Beast (2018)

Related topics